A leading 51±¾É« academic has been appointed to a key economic advisory role within government.
Stephen Kinsella, Professor of Economics at UL and head of the economics department at UL’s Kemmy Business School, has been appointed as economic advisor to An Taoiseach Simon Harris TD.
Professor Kinsella will be seconded from his role at UL on a part-time basis but will be maintaining his duties at the University, with some additional supports.
The co-director of the Immersive Software Engineering programme, Professor Kinsella is the author of more than 50 journal articles, leads a number of research teams and is a Research Associate at the Rhodes Centre for International Finance at Brown University.
He is a member of the Artificial Intelligence Advisory Council and chairs the external advisory board to the Government’s Economic Evaluation Service.
The UL academic was also a board member of the Higher Education Authority for three years to 2017.
A former columnist for the Business Post, Professor Kinsella has also written for the Guardian, the New York Times, and the Irish Independent and will be pausing his current role as Chief Economics Writer for The Currency.
He has twice won Economic Commentator of the Year for his columns.
Professor Kinsella said he was “honoured to be appointed Economic Advisor to An Taoiseach, Simon Harris.
“It will be a privilege to help the Taoiseach in his role by applying some of the ideas developed here in the Department of Economics. Hopefully I can bring that and other insights to the discussion around economic policy at a key time for the country. I can’t wait to get started.â€
Professor Kinsella, who has two PhDs in economics, joined UL in 2006 and was appointed as Professor of Economics in 2022.
He was instrumental in developing the Immersive Software Engineering programme at UL, working directly with industry representatives to bring the project to fruition.
He was also principal investigator in the SMARTLAB project which adopts a living lab approach to examining financial and technical barriers to the use of smart technologies in Ireland’s buildings.