Therese Conway

Current positions:Lecturer: School of Geography and Archaeology, NUI GalwayProgramme Director: MA Rural Futures Planning and Innovation MA Planning and DevelopmentPI:ATLANTIC_SUNSETResearch Team Member: FLIARAGeneral research Profile:Therese is a lecturer in Geography and a Programme Director of the MA Planning and Development. Which is an SCSIRICS professionally accredited programme. Dr Conway was the lead University of Galway staff member in securing this accreditation in June 2023.Over the last number of years, Dr. Conway has positioned her research agenda with a focus on the concepts of networks and networking, and in particular their role in development, including studies that engage with their role in tourism, ecotourism, community development (communities of practice) and spatial planning more generally. Recently Therese has secured finding for projects that examine Dark Sky and Sunlight tourism extending her expertise in niche tourism planning and development.In 2015-2016 Therese was postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Technology Tralee in the UNESCO Chair research centre.Dr Conway holds a primary degree in Geography and Sociology in University College Cork and aMasters in Planning and Sustainable Development also at UCC (RTPI and IPI Accredited). Following a short planning career Therese commenced her PhD at NUI Galway having been award a scholarship through PRTLI4, as part of the Irish Social Sciences Platform (ISSP) and the Whitaker Institute (NUI Galway), Programme of research.

Dr Conways research focuses on tourism destination planning and development with particular emphasis on alternative tourism forms such as ecotourism. Therese also has a specific interest in the role of networks and networking in rural tourism promotion and development. She is currently engaged in research relating to the valorization of sunsets across Europe, as a sustainable and niche tourism resource (ATLANTIC SUNSET) and also inthe role of social capital in ecotourism promotion and the definition of ecotourism in developed world locations.Dr Conway has previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher on an EU Northern Peripheries and Arctic Programme project BUSK (Building Shared Knowledge Capital). This project explored peripheral livelihoods and land uses dependent on natural resources, associated issues of contested management and planning, and the development of innovative solutions to policy and planning for their long-term sustainability.Therese has also worked as a postdoctoral researcher on a four partner consortium that was awarded the contract to run the National Rural Network in Ireland (NRN) for the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. The NRN is a support body for the successful implementation of the Rural Development Programme 2014-2020. NUI Galway is the lead research partner. The NRN engaged in a practical way with networking key stakeholders and communities within the Rural Development Programme 2014-2020.Strategically, being involved in the NRN allowed Therese to apply her academic and practical knowledge of networks to research on the RDP process with a particular focus on the LEADER Programme, Farm Viability and European Innovation Partnerships. Involvement here also assisted with Dr Conways research agendain terms of the development of networks and the contribution that collaborative and communicative structures and processes make to long-term and sustainable planning for both community and rural development. Her PhD research, supervised by Emeritus Professor Mary Cawley,funded through the PRTLI4 as part of the ISSP and the Whitaker Institute programme of research. Therese is a member of the Rural Studies and Planning and Sustainable DevelopmentResearch Clusters in Geography and the Whitaker Institute.

Since 2009 Dr Conway hasbeen engaged in third level teaching and learning. During this time her teaching portfolio has expanded to encompass the design, coordination and delivery of MA modules in service learning, rural development, and rural tourism, and extensive undergraduate teaching in core subjects and specialist research areas.Dr Conways teaching experience in Geography at NUI Galway relates to designing and coordinating courses for classes of 100+ students, coordinating modules and conducting the associated teaching for a fourth level MA group (10 students), and engaging in a number of team taught modules across the discipline for classes in excess of 200.