Madelaine Dennison
Conference Topic: Welcome address
Madelaine joined the Houses of the Oireachtas in 2005 to take up the post of Head of Library and Research Services. Madelaine was responsible for establishing the parliamentary research service and for modernising the Oireachtas library. More recently Madelaine has established a records management unit in the Oireachtas and is developing the Oireachtas archives.
Prior to working in the Houses of the Oireachtas Madelaine developed law library and knowledge management services in the Office of the Attorney General, Dublin. Madelaine has an MBS in Business Practice and is a Fellow of the Library Association of Ireland. Her professional interests are executive coaching and change management.
Josefa Fuentes
Conference Topic: Opening remarks
Josefa Fuentes has dedicated over thirty years of service to the Spanish Parliament, first, holding the position of Manager of the European Documentation Area of the Senate.
She is currently and since 2007 the Director of Documentation in the Spanish Senate, a Directorate that includes the Knowledge Services, Library, and the Archives of the Chamber. Her ongoing projects focus on the Senate’s Electronic Document Management Policy and on improving knowledge management through the search engine renewal on the Senate's institutional website (in operation since May 21, 2019).
She holds the position of Chair 2021-2023 of the IFLAPARL Section in the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions.
Anne-Lise Harding
Conference Topic: Information literacy for scrutiny: Equality and diversity in research
Anne-Lise Harding (she/elle) is Senior Liaison Librarian at the House of Commons and Deputy Chair of the CILIP Information Literacy Group (ILG). Anne-Lise’s interests lie in Information Literacy, user education and Equality and Diversity. After graduating with an MA in Librarianship in 2011, Anne-Lise held several roles in the education sector, making the transition to the government sector in 2020.
In her role, Anne-Lise supports both the House of Commons Library and Select Committee Teams, focusing mainly on Information Literacy training, liaison and outreach. She is leading on Information Literacy work to make research for scrutiny more diverse, inclusive and representative. Anne-Lise is currently working on developing the Media and Information Literacy Alliance’s (MILA) framework with the support of ILG and the wider information professional community.
Patricia Dowling
Conference Topic: The Oireachtas Library: A digital journey
Patricia Dowling is a Senior Librarian in the Oireachtas Library, the library of the Irish Parliament. In this role, she manages the Systems and Content Services team which is responsible for print and digital collections management including metadata management, management of library systems for both print and digital resources, and procurement and provision of access to information and research resources. Patricia has over 30 years’ experience as a Librarian in a range of library sectors (public, special and academic).
Paola Mandillo
Conference Topic: The Italian Chamber of Deputies Library’s contribution to the implementation of the “Historical Portal of the Chamber of Deputies”
Paola Mandillo is Parliamentary Officer and Librarian at the Chamber of Deputies of the Italian Parliament, which she joined in 2003. Since April 2022, she has served as Officer at the Department for Parliamentary Reports, being in charge of publishing Verbatim and Summary Reports of the Chamber of Deputies Plenary sittings. In the previous years she worked at the Chamber Department, at the Library and at the Secretariat of the President of the Chamber of Deputies.
During her assignment to the Library she worked in the Observatory on Foreign Legislation Office and she was also involved in two activities: publication of the Library’s Collection of Parliamentary Speeches of notable MPs; organization of temporary exhibitions on the Library’s Historical Collections. Since 2015 she has been Standing Committee Member of the IFLA Section “Library and Research Services for Parliaments” and she is in her Second Term. She pursued her University studies in humanities at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” and she obtained her Master’s Degree in History and Principles of Modern and Contemporary Constitutions at the University of Macerata (Italy).
Ellie Valentine
Conference Topic: Parliamentary Information in Times of Crisis: The Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada Speaks with their Citizens
Ellie Valentine has over 30 years of experience leading international programs in the areas of legislative development, governance, civil society strengthening, and human rights. She has served as Chief of Party/Director for USAID parliamentary development projects in Ukraine, Armenia, Pakistan, Armenia, and Bangladesh leading local project teams to create and improve parliamentary committee systems, rules and regulations of parliament, library and research services, citizen outreach programs, and legislative-executive relations. She also strengthened alliances between civil society organizations and parliament and government structures in Ukraine, Bangladesh, Yemen, Niger, Morocco, Guatemala, and Central Asia. Ellie received a Master of Library Science from Indiana University in the USA.
Sonia Bebbington
Conference Topic: Reframing historical collections in contemporary times
Sonia Bebbington (BA, MA, MLIS) is a librarian by profession and has worked in all areas of librarianship throughout the 20+ years of her career. At the Library of Parliament of Canada, where Sonia has worked for over 10 years, she is the Director General, Information and Document Resources Services (IDRS). IDRS builds, manages, preserves and optimizes access to the Library's resources and collections, and compiles and disseminates historical information about Parliament and Parliamentarians. She is the Secretary-Treasurer of the Association of Parliamentary Libraries in Canada (APLIC), and a former Secretary and current active Standing Committee member of IFLAPARL.
Joonhwa Jung
Conference Topic: The Evolution of Research Services Through Data, Cooperation, Sharing and Openness: Experiences of the NARS, Republic of Korea
Joonhwa Jung received a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Seoul National University and works as a Legislative Researcher at the National Assembly Research Service (NARS) of Republic of Korea. Research fields are laws and policies of information technology (IT) such as big data, artificial intelligence, data economy, digital transformation, cloud computing and Metaverse. Recent studies are ‘Policy Issues on AI based Government (2021)’, ‘Issues and Tasks on Metaverse (2021)’ and ‘Policy Study on Data, Network, and Artificial Intelligence for the Digital Era (2021)’.
Dr Heather Lank
Conference Topic: Evolving and enhancing research services in a changing parliamentary context
Dr Heather Lank was appointed Parliamentary Librarian on June 21, 2018. As Parliamentary Librarian, Dr Lank oversees the management of the library, and reports to the Speakers of the Senate and the House of Commons, who are responsible for the direction and control of the Library of Parliament.
Dr Lank was born in Arvida, Quebec, and she was educated in Switzerland, the United States and Canada. She obtained her doctorate in Sociology from the University of Toronto. Dr Lank joined the Canadian federal public service in 1990, then moved to the Senate of Canada in 1991 where she assumed progressively more senior leadership roles over 27 years. She served as Principal Clerk of Committees from 1999 to 2015 and as Principal Clerk of Chamber Operations and Procedure from 2015 to 2018.
Bonnie Mathhooko
Conference Topic: Forging partnerships for effective evidence-based policy work and Parliamentary Scrutiny: A Practical Approach
Bonnie is an Economist with major interest in public sector economics, trade, public policy and governance. He has served in the Parliament of Kenya as a research analyst for the last eighteen years when the Parliamentary Research Services (PRS) was first established.
Bonnie currently serves as the Parliament of Kenya’s Chief Research Officer in the heading the PRS. The position entails coordination research and policy analysis by a multi-disciplinary team of non-partisan research analysts serving the bicameral Parliament. This role supports Members with timely access to concise, synthesized and objective research information and policy analysis to facilitate evidence-informed decision making. The users of the range of research services, analyses and products are mainly the Parliamentary Leadership, Members, House Committees, Caucuses, and staff of Parliament.
Niall Watters
Conference Topic: Providing evidence for parliamentarians to aid their legislative scrutiny role: Examples for the Irish Parliament
Niall has been with the Houses of the Oireachtas Library and Research Service for eight years and leads on the Service’s pre-legislative scrutiny (PLS) work. Niall is a very experienced social policy researcher, and he provides research and analysis across a range of the Service’s areas of work, including legislative analysis and topical and discrete research for individual Members.
Niall worked as a socio-economic research and project consultant for 13 years before joining the Oireachtas. Prior to his consultancy role, Niall was manager for three years of a local development partnership company focusing on social inclusion.
Franklin De Vrieze
Conference Topic: Reinvigorating parliamentary oversight through post-legislative scrutiny – overview of innovative tools
Franklin De Vrieze is the Head of Practice Accountability at Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD). Franklin is a democracy and governance expert with extensive experience in post conflict, fragile and transition countries. He is WFD's in-house expert on Post-Legislative Scrutiny, independent oversight institutions, financial accountability, and anti-corruption. He develops tools, resources and research to support the design and implementation of WFD programmes.
Franklin has over 30 years’ experience in the field of good governance, with a specific 20 years focus on parliamentary strengthening. He has led many parliamentary identification, formulation and evaluation missions. He is a published researcher and the author of several academic and policy publications.
Étienne Bassot
Conference Topic: How citizen expectation shapes our research agenda and how we reach out to citizens
Étienne Bassot has been a manager in the European Parliament, in the research field, for thirteen years. Since July 2022, he heads the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) as acting Director General.
Since 2014, he has been Director of the Members’ Research Service within EPRS. Prior to taking up this position, Mr Bassot led the Policy Department of the European Parliament’s Directorate-General for External Policies (2007-2014). Within the Parliament, he previously held positions in the secretariats of the Committees on Internal Market and on Development. He served as advisor to Nicole Fontaine from 2000 to 2002, in her position as President of the European Parliament. He is a graduate of the Universities of Nancy and Saarbrucken, with master's degrees in law and European studies.
Prof Patrick Paul Walsh
Conference Topic: The Challenge of evidence-based policy via open research
Patrick Paul Walsh is currently on secondment to UN SDSN as Vice President of Education and Director the SDG Academy. He remains a Full Professor of International Development Studies, Director of the UCD Centre for Sustainable Development Studies and Director of the UCD M.Sc. in Sustainable Development in partnership with UN SDSN. He is the contact point for UCD in terms of UCD’s consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council and a member of the UN Major Group for Science and Technology. He is also an instructor for Harvard Extension School teaching Foundations of Sustainable Development (online). He received a Ph.D. in Economics from the London School of Economics in 1994. He is a Government of Ireland, Marie Curie (Brussels), IZA (Bonn), RSA (London), EIIR (Brussels) and REPOA (Tanzania) fellow.
Niamh Brennan
Conference Topic: The Challenge of evidence-based policy via open research
Niamh Brennan is Programme Manager for Research Informatics in Trinity College Library Dublin where she works on research reporting, evaluation and impact. She is responsible for the development of Trinity's Research Support System and its institutional repository, TARA (Trinity's Access to Research Archive). Niamh is a member of several national and international groups working on open access to research outputs and enabling their improved reporting, retrieval and evaluation. These include Ireland's National Open Science Forum, DART-Europe, OpenAIRE2020 (Horizon2020) and OpenAIRE Advance (Horizon2020). She is a member of the management councils of two key Irish journals in economics and social sciences and has partnered in several research projects in digital humanities, international development and social sciences. She is also a member of the European Commission Expert Group on Skills for Open Science, reporting to the European Open Science Policy Platform (expert group report published: September 2017).
Dr Charles Larkin
Conference Topic: The Challenge of evidence-based policy via open research
Charles Larkin, (Discip. Schol.) B.A., Ph.D. [TCD] is Director of Research at the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Bath. He was previously special advisor to the Chairman of the Oireachtas Committee on Health, Dr. Michael Harty, TD (Ind.) and to Senator Sean Barrett (Ind.) of the Irish Senate. Dr. Larkin is also an adjunct assistant professor at Trinity College Dublin, Johns Hopkins University and the Institute of Public Administration (Dublin). Dr. Larkin also holds non-executive director positions as member of the governing authority of Technological University Dublin and the board of Accounting Technicians Ireland. Dr. Larkin has authored several items of Irish legislation and over 60 scholarly articles, most especially in the areas of finance, cryptocurrencies and public policy economics.