Search

Given recent large-scale reform of school leadership and management policy with implications for leadership preparation, the Republic of Ireland is an interesting context in which to explore leadership preparation. Although policy reforms have influenced the preparation and development of school leaders at all levels in the system, there is little available research on principals’ perceptions of their preparation to lead schools in the contemporary policy context. Addressing this gap in the research, in this study 12 recently appointed, novice primary and post-primary principals’ perceptions of their preparation to become a school leader and the reformed policy context are documented and analysed. Thematic analysis of principals’ accounts exposes a range of dualities they must navigate owing to recent reforms. Their accounts also paint their diverse pathways towards the principalship, illuminate challenges and complexities on this pathway and in their current position. Their perspectives inform a more dynamic framework of leadership preparation than that of the leadership pipeline, a common metaphor in leadership preparation, with relevance for many actors in the system, including policy-makers, researchers, practitioners and those involved in selection and appointment. Implications are drawn for the Irish context but may also be relevant to other jurisdictions considering or implementing reform of school leadership preparation.

Brexit is an unforeseen consequence of the global economic crisis. It is driven by neoliberal fantasy and populist doctrines of the heartland, boorish towards periphery in all its complexities. This article examines the idea of the periphery. It considers the legacy of the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland and a broken projector in the Red Room where the author teaches Critical Theory as platforms for inquiry. It looks to the Red Room as a principle to challenge the wider ramifications of Brexit. At root, it is to imagine durable forms of resistance within conditions of severe confusion, doubt and despair.

We analyse determinants of an enterprise’s decision to offshore R&D activities using a novel dataset for enterprises in Ireland over the period 2001–2006. Our results suggest that, on average, other things equal, enterprises integrated in international production and innovation networks, and enterprises which used information and communication technologies more intensively were more likely to offshore R&D. Furthermore, characteristics of the import source region had an important influence on enterprise offshoring behaviour, with offshoring to regions outside of the advanced European Union’s economies being less likely.

Summary Background The INTERVAL trial showed that, over a 2-year period, inter-donation intervals for whole blood donation can be safely reduced to meet blood shortages. We extended the INTERVAL trial for a further 2 years to evaluate the longer-term risks and benefits of varying inter-donation intervals, and to compare routine versus more intensive reminders to help donors keep appointments. Methods The INTERVAL trial was a parallel group, pragmatic, randomised trial that recruited blood donors aged 18 years or older from 25 static donor centres of NHS Blood and Transplant across England, UK. Here we report on the prespecified analyses after 4 years of follow-up. Participants were whole blood donors who agreed to continue trial participation on their originally allocated inter-donation intervals (men: 12, 10, and 8 weeks; women: 16, 14, and 12 weeks). They were further block-randomised (1:1) to routine versus more intensive reminders using computer-generated random sequences. The prespecified primary outcome was units of blood collected per year analysed in the intention-to-treat population. Secondary outcomes related to safety were quality of life, self-reported symptoms potentially related to donation, haemoglobin and ferritin concentrations, and deferrals because of low haemoglobin and other factors. This trial is registered with ISRCTN, number ISRCTN24760606, and has completed. Findings Between Oct 19, 2014, and May 3, 2016, 20 757 of the 38 035 invited blood donors (10 843 [58%] men, 9914 [51%] women) participated in the extension study. 10 378 (50%) were randomly assigned to routine reminders and 10 379 (50%) were randomly assigned to more intensive reminders. Median follow-up was 1·1 years (IQR 0·7–1·3). Compared with routine reminders, more intensive reminders increased blood collection by a mean of 0·11 units per year (95% CI 0·04–0·17; p=0·0003) in men and 0·06 units per year (0·01–0·11; p=0·0094) in women. During the extension study, each week shorter inter-donation interval increased blood collection by a mean of 0·23 units per year (0·21–0·25) in men and 0·14 units per year (0·12–0·15) in women (both p0.0001 for tests of linear trend by inter-donation intervals) other than a higher reported frequency of doctor-diagnosed low iron concentrations and prescription of iron supplements in men (p

Background: whether a restrictive threshold for hemoglobin level in red-cell transfusions, as compared with a liberal threshold, reduces postoperative morbidity and health care costs after cardiac surgery is uncertain. Methods: we conducted a multicenter, parallel-group trial in which patients older than 16 years of age who were undergoing nonemergency cardiac surgery were recruited from 17 centers in the United Kingdom. Patients with a postoperative hemoglobin level of less than 9 g per deciliter were randomly assigned to a restrictive transfusion threshold (hemoglobin level Results: a total of 2007 patients underwent randomization; 4 participants withdrew, leaving 1000 in the restrictive-threshold group and 1003 in the liberal-threshold group. Transfusion rates after randomization were 53.4% and 92.2% in the two groups, respectively. The primary outcome occurred in 35.1% of the patients in the restrictive-threshold group and 33.0% of the patients in the liberal-threshold group (odds ratio, 1.11; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.91 to 1.34; P=0.30); there was no indication of heterogeneity according to subgroup. There were more deaths in the restrictive-threshold group than in the liberal-threshold group (4.2% vs. 2.6%; hazard ratio, 1.64; 95% CI, 1.00 to 2.67; P=0.045). Serious postoperative complications, excluding primary-outcome events, occurred in 35.7% of participants in the restrictive-threshold group and 34.2% of participants in the liberal-threshold group. Total costs did not differ significantly between the groups. Conclusions: a restrictive transfusion threshold after cardiac surgery was not superior to a liberal threshold with respect to morbidity or health care costs

Summary Background Limits on the frequency of whole blood donation exist primarily to safeguard donor health. However, there is substantial variation across blood services in the maximum frequency of donations allowed. We compared standard practice in the UK with shorter inter-donation intervals used in other countries. Methods In this parallel group, pragmatic, randomised trial, we recruited whole blood donors aged 18 years or older from 25 centres across England, UK. By use of a computer-based algorithm, men were randomly assigned (1:1:1) to 12-week (standard) versus 10-week versus 8-week inter-donation intervals, and women were randomly assigned (1:1:1) to 16-week (standard) versus 14-week versus 12-week intervals. Participants were not masked to their allocated intervention group. The primary outcome was the number of donations over 2 years. Secondary outcomes related to safety were quality of life, symptoms potentially related to donation, physical activity, cognitive function, haemoglobin and ferritin concentrations, and deferrals because of low haemoglobin. This trial is registered with ISRCTN, number ISRCTN24760606, and is ongoing but no longer recruiting participants. Findings 45 263 whole blood donors (22 466 men, 22 797 women) were recruited between June 11, 2012, and June 15, 2014. Data were analysed for 45 042 (99·5%) participants. Men were randomly assigned to the 12-week (n=7452) versus 10-week (n=7449) versus 8-week (n=7456) groups; and women to the 16-week (n=7550) versus 14-week (n=7567) versus 12-week (n=7568) groups. In men, compared with the 12-week group, the mean amount of blood collected per donor over 2 years increased by 1·69 units (95% CI 1·59–1·80; approximately 795 mL) in the 8-week group and by 0·79 units (0·69–0·88; approximately 370 mL) in the 10-week group (p

If Canada’s Competition Bureau gets its way, there will be greater competition in the residential real estate brokerage business, commission rates will fall and the public will have enhanced access to the Multiple Listing Service. To this end, the Bureau announced on 8 February 2010 that a notice of application would be filed with the Competition Tribunal challenging the way the Canadian Real Estate Association conducts business. The association filed its response six weeks later. Regardless of the ultimate outcome of this action, it is safe to say that the face of Canadian residential real estate brokerage services will never be the same. Commonwealth Law Bulletin editorial advisory board member Gavin Murphy explains.

We analyse determinants of an enterprise’s decision to offshore R&D activities using a novel data set for enterprises in Ireland over the period 2001-2006. Our results suggest that, on average, other things equal, enterprises integrated in international production and innovation networks, and enterprises which used information and communication technologies (ICT) more intensively were more likely to offshore R&D. Furthermore, characteristics of the import source region had an important influence on enterprise offshoring behaviour, with offshoring to regions outside of the advanced European Union’s economies being less likely.

Free and open competition is a good thing, but anti‐competitive behaviour is a bad thing. Anti‐competitive activities such as conspiracy, bid‐rigging and abuse of a dominant position are detrimenta...

This chapter provides empirical evidence on Ireland’s export performance in the context of increased globalization over the past ten years. Using insights from recent contributions to international trade and economic growth theories, we first examine patterns and changes of revealed comparative advantages for Ireland’s exports of goods and services. We then investigate whether Irish exports have specialized in fast-growing industries and markets in world exports over the period. Third, we analyse determinants of export performance dynamics, focusing on product and market structures and competitiveness effects. Finally, to put Ireland’s export performance into perspective, we compare this evidence with recent developments in other selected European small open economies.

An important component of the NEUJOBS project is its interaction with the policy community. The project is pursuing several avenues to ensure its results are properly “translated” and communicated to such audiences. One of them are policy briefs. This Policy Brief contains policy implications on labour relations and modes of employment (Work Package 6), a collaborative EU-funded research project. NEUJOBS Working Documents are intended to give an indication of work being conducted within the NEUJOBS research project and to stimulate reactions from other experts in the field. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily represent any institution with which he is affiliated. See the back page for more information about the NEUJOBS project.

Focussing on the Republic of Ireland, this chapter begins by providing some information about the context and noting current external and internal evaluation practices. The scene preceding the current state of play is explained, when a claim was made about the decline in quality of education provision in Ireland. The policy response to this claim was, in part, a series of decisions made centrally to expand external evaluation practices and to make internal evaluation obligatory. While analysis elsewhere has charted Ireland’s school evaluation reform historically (Coolahan and O’Donovan, 2009) or connected it to global patterns in education reform movements at the system level (Brown et al., 2016a), less attention has been paid to analysing how individual teachers make sense of the reform and, specifically, linking their sense-making processes to theories of professional agency. In this chapter vignettes constructed from interview data generated with three teachers are presented, offering rich accounts of teachers’ sense-making of external and internal evaluation. Interview data manifested as tangled tales in the process of generating the vignettes, whereby the teachers demonstrated professional agency in both resistance and compliance with new policies of evaluation in their practice. In the discussion that follows, themes recurring in the vignettes are raised, providing an insight into dilemmas of policy and practice in local contexts. Based on their sense-making, where teachers declare themselves or appear as either active subjects or passive objects through local school evaluation practices, implications for contemporary practices of evaluation are highlighted.

Background The new contract for general medical practitioners will make increasing demands on the primary care informatics community. There are a number of potential ways to provide reports which meet the requirements for data on the quality of care being provided by practices. In Scotland there are four components of the national information technology strategy which make meaningful comparisons of data possible. Objective Using cardiovascular data as an example, to describe how the community health index number, managed clinical networks (MCNs), increasing consistency of Read codes, and regional repositories of data make the acquisition, processing and use of data more straightforward. Method The cardiovascular MCN collects the majority of its data electronically and four properties are crucial to its success: automatic collection of electronic data from many sources, prioritisation of data derived from multiple sources, record linkage processes, and manual validation of electronic data. Results Clinicians in primary and secondary care enter data during consultations and see the results of consultations recorded elsewhere. Because all data from the region are able to be Read coded according to prespecified templates, we are able to indicate to practices where they are in relation to the new contract targets and indicate which patients need to be seen, or excluded from, calculations. Conclusion Effectively integrated management is facilitated by provision of regular prompted recall and review of people with chronic disease by multidisciplinary teams collaborating across the health service and into the community. In Scotland, use of newer informatics tools are proving to be useful contributions from primary care computing to equitable, evidence-based care.