Claire Edwards

UCC

Dr Claire Edwards is Senior Lecturer in Social Policy in the School of Applied Social Studies, University College Cork, and former Director of ISS21 (Institute for Social Science in the 21st Century), UCC's interdisciplinary social sciences research institute. She began her academic career in urban and cultural geography at Royal Holloway, University of London, working for three years in applied social policy research at the Disability Rights Commission and Department for Work and Pensions in the UK, before joining UCC. Claire is an interdisciplinary scholar whose work sits at the intersection of urban geography, social policy and critical disability studies. Her work focuses on the socio-political processes which shape how disability is understood and ‘governed’ in Western societies and investigates the implications for disabled people’s socio-spatial in/justice and rights to equal citizenship. She is the author of over 50 publications, including two co-authored books, Reframing Health and Health Policy in Ireland (with E. Fernandez, Manchester University Press, 2017) and The Short Guide to Urban Policy (with R. Imrie, Policy Press, 2015). Claire has received over €1 million in research funding from funders including the European Commission, Irish Research Council and National Disability Authority, and is currently leading a major 3 year project entitled CareVisions, which seeks to re-imagine care relations in Ireland in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Claire teaches across a range of programmes in UCC and is heavily involved in postgraduate education. She is co-founder and former Director (2005-2017) of the Doctor of Social Science programme and remains a core member of the course team.