Maura Adshead, BA, MA (Limerick), PhD (Liverpool), is Senior Lecturer in Politics and Public Administration at the University of Limerick. Prior to her appointment in Limerick, she carried out research and taught in the universities of Dundee, Liverpool, Essex, Galway and Dublin. Her research interests focus on Irish politics and public policy, comparative studies of public policy, policy change, and EU involvement in the policy process in European states. She is author of Developing European Regions? Ashgate, 2002 (vii+197pp), co-author (with Jonathon Tonge) of Government and Politics in Ireland. Unity and diversity on a two-polity island, Palgrave, 2009 (xv+264pp); and co-editor (with Michelle Millar) of Public Administration and Public Policy in Ireland: theory and methods, Routledge 2003 (xvi+256pp) and (with Peadar Kirby and Michelle Millar) Contesting the State: lessons from the Irish case, Manchester University Press, 2008 (xii+197). She has published articles in Electoral Studies, Policy and Politics, Public Administration, Public Policy and Administration, West European Politics and the Irish journal Economic and Social Review and has carried out commissioned research for Combat Poverty, the HSE and the NESF.