Centre for Economics, Policy and History
QUCEH Research Associates and Affiliates are developing and and implementing an engagement strategy as part of CEPH, the all-Ireland Centre of Excellence funded by the North-South Research Initiative. CEPH's outreach objectives are divided into four categories, each designed to inform and influence a specific audience.
Pupils: Inspiring school pupils to choose economics and economic history at university
We believe economic history offers a unique opportunity for pupils in secondary education to understand the world in which they live, while ensuring they develop a well-rounded and extremely employable skillset. The economic history discipline’s natural balance between quantification and contextualisation opens up interesting and lucrative career paths. Yet economic history remains underrated and understudied in the school curriculum, not featuring very much in either economics or history syllabi.
We aim to engage with school pupils before they embark on their university journey and demonstrate how useful and fulfilling economic history can be. This will be achieved through targeted outreach activities, including school visits across the island by CEPH staff, holding access events at Trinity College Dublin and Queen’s University Belfast, and delivering CPD training to secondary school teachers.
Pedagogy: Championing economic history at UK and Irish universities
Although economic history enjoyed a significant rise in popularity from the 1970s, the 1990s heralded a bleak time for the discipline, with plummeting student numbers forcing the closure of most university economic history departments across Ireland and the UK. Academic economic historians were initially consolidated into either history or economics, but the discipline was not priorities in either.
We aim to re-install economic history as a key part of the academic fabric of Irish and UK universities. We will revive interest in the field by demonstrating its value to academics who may not appreciate the benefits it can offer to their research and teaching. We will achieve our goal through the dissemination of new teaching and learning resources, as well as organising pedagogical research seminars, roundtable discussions and CPD courses for new lecturers.
Policy: Encouraging policymakers to consider historical context
Public policy is rarely experimental and must instead ground itself in what came before. Truly effective policymaking combines a deep understanding of the policy context with robust modelling of potential outcomes. Economic history helps with both.
CEPH aims to ensure that learning from the past is not lost in the policymaking process. We aim to help improve policy decisions by providing the necessary economic history context. And we intend to develop new rigorous policy evaluation methods that take history seriously.
Public: Sparking an interest in economic history
Whether they realise it or not, most people care directly about the economy. It has an impact on every aspect of our lives, and its study can help us to better understand our standard of living, wages, housing situation and more.
Economic history enjoys a unique position as it has the potential to inform almost any level of economic query. Questions like ‘why did a land war in Europe change the price of bread in Ireland?’ or ‘how does inflation affect me?’ can all be addressed by drawing on our economic past. The challenge is demonstrating this utility to the public in an accessible manner.
Core project team:
Project website: https://ceph.ie/outreach/
Pupils: Inspiring school pupils to choose economics and economic history at university
We believe economic history offers a unique opportunity for pupils in secondary education to understand the world in which they live, while ensuring they develop a well-rounded and extremely employable skillset. The economic history discipline’s natural balance between quantification and contextualisation opens up interesting and lucrative career paths. Yet economic history remains underrated and understudied in the school curriculum, not featuring very much in either economics or history syllabi.
We aim to engage with school pupils before they embark on their university journey and demonstrate how useful and fulfilling economic history can be. This will be achieved through targeted outreach activities, including school visits across the island by CEPH staff, holding access events at Trinity College Dublin and Queen’s University Belfast, and delivering CPD training to secondary school teachers.
Pedagogy: Championing economic history at UK and Irish universities
Although economic history enjoyed a significant rise in popularity from the 1970s, the 1990s heralded a bleak time for the discipline, with plummeting student numbers forcing the closure of most university economic history departments across Ireland and the UK. Academic economic historians were initially consolidated into either history or economics, but the discipline was not priorities in either.
We aim to re-install economic history as a key part of the academic fabric of Irish and UK universities. We will revive interest in the field by demonstrating its value to academics who may not appreciate the benefits it can offer to their research and teaching. We will achieve our goal through the dissemination of new teaching and learning resources, as well as organising pedagogical research seminars, roundtable discussions and CPD courses for new lecturers.
Policy: Encouraging policymakers to consider historical context
Public policy is rarely experimental and must instead ground itself in what came before. Truly effective policymaking combines a deep understanding of the policy context with robust modelling of potential outcomes. Economic history helps with both.
CEPH aims to ensure that learning from the past is not lost in the policymaking process. We aim to help improve policy decisions by providing the necessary economic history context. And we intend to develop new rigorous policy evaluation methods that take history seriously.
Public: Sparking an interest in economic history
Whether they realise it or not, most people care directly about the economy. It has an impact on every aspect of our lives, and its study can help us to better understand our standard of living, wages, housing situation and more.
Economic history enjoys a unique position as it has the potential to inform almost any level of economic query. Questions like ‘why did a land war in Europe change the price of bread in Ireland?’ or ‘how does inflation affect me?’ can all be addressed by drawing on our economic past. The challenge is demonstrating this utility to the public in an accessible manner.
Core project team:
- Chris Colvin (CEPH Associate Director for Outreach and Engagement)
- Andrew Dorman (CEPH Research and Policy Officer)
- Lloyd Maphosa (CEPH Postdoctoral Fellow)
Project website: https://ceph.ie/outreach/