Caroline Crowley

Caroline is a researcher who hails from a small farm in West Cork.  Given the freedom to explore her interests in nature, she studied zoology in the natural sciences at Trinity College Dublin.  Later, to explore her interest in humans and society, she studied human geography in the social sciences at Maynooth University. She has learned as much through practice, from being a community volunteer to working with practitioners caring for individuals, for families, for communities and for nature.  Her most valuable teacher was being a family carer, in partnership with her husband Brian, wider family and the local community, that revealed the invisible world of care relations.  And it raised questions – about what and whom we value in society. Who is doing the foundational work?  Is it the celebrated, the powerful, the rich, those ‘outstanding’ in their fields?  Or is it actually all of those on whose shoulders they stand - the caregivers, the volunteers, and nature herself? 

Caroline works with frontline organisations active in social services, community development and community financial services, as well as nature conservation.  Her aim is to support their vital work in care across the spectrum of meeting needs to achieve wellbeing among people and planet. Her professional and voluntary work increasingly takes a systems approach and focuses on highlighting care relations through a social-ecological lens and on supporting a Just Transition to an economy designed in service to life, one that truly values and rewards care for one another, nature and our collective future through Cultural Transformation Theory and the lens of Partnerism.  

Caroline has co-facilitated multi-stakeholder visioning processes at local (e.g. for a network of islands in the southwest) to regional level (e.g. for a multi-county river catchment in the southeast) to help partners develop a strategy for co-ordinated collaboration towards a common purpose.  This work taught her the importance of relational dynamics in what may be achieved by a group, or not.  That learning led her to the systems framework of Partnerism and Cultural Transformation Theory for a shift from domination (power over relations) to partnership social systems (power with, power to and power within relations).

As an evaluator, Caroline has supported service providers to explore where their work is meeting the needs of beneficiaries, and how it might serve them better. As an expert evaluator for the EU Commission, she has worked on H2020 and FP7 calls, namely: 'Greening the economy'; 'Sustainable production and management of biological resources from land, forest and aquatic environments' and 'Food, agriculture and fisheries, and biotechnology'.  She recommends that early-stage researchers consider registering with the Commission for this role as it gives great insights into the research funding decision-making process that may be helpful when it comes to writing their future grant applications.

Her current projects at the Centre for Co-operative Studies are: 

Social Economy Initiatives Supporting Ageing in Place (ASPIRE) – funded by Research Ireland

Driving Inclusive Care: Economic Democracy and Social Economy (DICES) – funded by EU Horizon-RIA

The following project at the Centre was completed in 2024:

Exploring the Potential for the Development of Care Co-operatives to Support Older People to Age Well at Home (CO-AGE) - funded by Research Ireland