Do the Humanities Actually Matter? Public Policy and the Humanities

Recorded November 19th, 2025. The Trinity Long Room Hub was delighted to launch a new seminar series - Bridging the Gap between Policy and Research - exploring how scholarship in the Arts and Humanities can shape and inform public policy for the common good. The opening seminar, Do the Humanities Actually Matter? Public Policy and the Humanities hears from Peter MacDonagh, a former senior advisor in the Taoiseach’s Office whose career has bridged government and academia, and includes considerable experience in public policy and research in different countries.  Speaker: A former senior advisor in the Taoiseach’s Office, Peter MacDonagh has had an unusually broad involvement in public policy development, research funding and participation in pan-EU research programmes. Following studies in history in UCD and Cambridge, he worked for the now Taoiseach Micheál Martin when they developed the foundations for funding research in the Humanities. In government, he was substantially involved in deepening the engagement between academic research and public policy. Subsequently he served on the Board of Science Foundation Ireland, now Research Ireland, and as chairperson of its Grants Awards Committee. He has been involved with a range of large-scale Horizon projects and works on public policy and political research in different European countries. Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub