Valerie Cummins

Valerie Cummins is the director of the Coastal and Marine Resources Centre, University College Cork. This involves the coordination of 30 research staff working on over 20 EU and nationally funded research projects and commercial contracts.

Her research interests cover a range of coastal governance issues including public participation, capacity building for coastal management, the science / policy interface and ecosystems frameworks.

As the co-ordinator of the EU Interreg IVB Imcore project, she is leading an initiative to develop coastal adaptation strategies for nine locations across north-west Europe using a range of scenario building and technical tools. She is a member of the Scientific Steering Committee for the FP6 SPICOSA and Conscience projects dealing with systems approach to coastal assessment and coastal erosion governance respectively.

At the national level, she contributes to the Climate Change Committee of the Royal Irish Academy. She is currently coordinating a STRIVE project on adaptive management for coastal climate change for the Environmental Protection Agency. She also chairs the Irish national coastal network, I-CoNet and has successfully delivered a number of reviews on ICZM for government bodies. Locally, she chairs the Cork Harbour Management Focus Group and engages in the Maritime and Energy Cluster (MERC) initiative. Valerie coordinates the delivery of the module ‘ICZM – policy and practice’ to UCC’s Geography masters students.

She contributes to the editorial panel of the international Marine Policy journal published by Elsevier and is a member of the Marine Geography Commission of the International Geographic Union. She is currently finalising her reading for a PhD on organisational tools for sustainability science in coastal zone management.

Prior to joining the CMRC, Valerie worked in the environmental consultancy industry and for the British Oceanographic Data Centre, UK.