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The Government of Ireland, through the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (DoFHERIS), sets the framework for the national research ecosystem. Within that ecosystem, the Research Management and Administrators (RMA) community evolved in response to changing circumstances and continues to evolve becoming a more professional and expert community. The profile of the community, admittedly based on a small sampling, is normal with a hint that females occupy the most senior roles. Most Irish research-performing organisations (RPOs) including the HE sector, College and State Research Organisations (CSRO), and the Health Service have RMA members active in The European Association of Research Managers and Administrators (EARMA). The next step in the profession’s evolution in Ireland has to be the development of a single, national, and inclusive RMA network providing a representative voice for the profession with respect to issues such as career development and career paths.

The purpose of this paper it to outline current resource‐sharing initiatives in Irish academic libraries that support increased research activity in line with national policy. This paper aims to point to the challenges and opportunities such initiatives present.

The approach takes the form of a review paper based on practice.

It has been suggested that the greatest obstacle to finding library research is that librarians do not publish their research. As financial constraints impact on all publicly funded organisations it is not unreasonable to suggest that decision making will become more dependent on research evidence than previously. Economies of scale cannot justify the development of a research body such as the Research Information Network (RIN) in the UK and, while its output is relevant to higher education in Ireland, it is important to remember that its findings must be adapted and scaled to the Irish environment, and that partnerships and collaboration may result in different dynamics from those in a larger polity. It is therefore important that Irish research is documented and published, so that it helps map the information landscape which supports the research agenda and the national interest.

The paper presents a synthesis of current practice, outlining current shortcomings and challenges. It will be of interest to all librarians concerned to learn more about resource sharing in the British Isles and in particular in the Republic of Ireland.

This chapter outlines incorporation of voluntary environmental accounting standards into national law as evidenced by the Scandinavian experience. In illustrating such hardening of soft law approaches it highlights difficulties national authorities face when attempting to regulate globalised commercial entities with extra-territorial activities. Adoption at national level of these standards into legally binding obligations illustrates convergence of global governance standards even where there is no central authority or designed codification.

Doctrinal legal research and literature review. To illustrate the incorporation of voluntary standards at a national level, Scandinavian examples (Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland) were chosen – frequently upheld as best practice in requiring the reporting of environmental information financial reports.

The research shows that the most proactive national authorities in this regard are endorsing certain voluntary standards and rewarding their use with reduced regulatory burden. I first outline certain voluntary environmental standards and then illustrate adoption of these standards into legally binding frameworks.

The main limitation was difficulty in finding English language versions of some national regulations.

This chapter seeks to illustrate a normativisation of soft law frameworks into legally binding national obligations. Viewed through the phenomenon of Global Administrative Law it would seem evident that national authorities are willing to adopt various international voluntary standards to regulate the increasingly globalised actions of companies.

Voluntary standards and the various reporting methods of non-financial information is an extremely broad regulatory sphere with decentralised regulation and parallel regulatory frameworks. This chapter, in illustrating the convergence of environmental governance standards through normativisation of previously voluntary standards, will assist the reader in attaining an overview of the extent of this regulatory convergence.

This chapter explores the role of language in constructing spaces of belonging in the relational lives of young migrant children in Ireland. In particular, it investigates how friendship is negotiated in linguistically normative school spaces.

The chapter draws on the findings and analysis of a larger study of Irish childhoods, race and belonging. The research involved qualitative work with 42 children, from migrant and non-migrant backgrounds. Research was undertaken with classroom groups in two primary schools in a large town in the west of Ireland, and with a small sample of migrant children and their parents in family homes. Arts-based and visual methods were incorporated throughout the data collection process.

Findings from the research indicate intersections between constructions of belonging in linguistic spaces such as the school and possibilities/constraints for children’s peer friendships. While ‘home’ languages and bilingual ability were valued in home contexts, even these spaces were inflected by the ‘English-only’ exigencies of school and broader societal spaces. Regarding peer friendship, the findings show that proficiency in speaking English was central, both in terms of accessing friendship rituals through ‘talk’, and, importantly, in terms of narrativizing self as viable school pupil and peer.

The significance of this work lies in its examination of the complexity of language as it functions in children’s relational lives. As well as being a pragmatic skill in negotiating and maintaining friendship, it identifies language as a marker of belonging that is shaped by and shapes school spaces, and which has implications for children’s peer friendships in this context. As such, the study points to a role for schools in engaging with and promoting recognition of children’s multilingual resources.