Board of Directors and Senior Partners

Dr. J. Andrew Kelly - Director

Andrew graduated with honours in Economics and English from UCD and Coimbra in 1999. At postgraduate level he went on to complete a M.Sc. (2000) and Ph.D. (2003) in the fields of economics and environmental policy, before completing two post doctoral positions. The first of these focusing on project building, project management and funding proposal development. The second on environmental policy and integrated modelling of climate and air pollution. In 2007 he formed AP EnvEcon, a specialised environmental and economic policy research unit, with Professor Peter Clinch. Andrew currently serves as executive director of AP EnvEcon and Principal Investigator of the IMP Ireland project which is now in its second phase. He is also an active member of the UNECE Task Force on Integrated Assessment Modelling, and an advisor on the Government backed Green IFSC initiative.

Andrew has particular interest in the areas of policy development and associated communication, regulation and negotiation, integrated modelling, transport demand management and the role of ICT in research and resource management.

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Prof. J. Peter Clinch - Director

Professor Peter Clinch has first class honours BA and MA degrees in economics as well as a PhD and a Diploma in environmental impact assessment. In 2003, he was appointed to the Jean Monnet Professorship (Economic Integration/Environmental Policy) at University College Dublin (UCD). In 2011, he was appointed Vice President for Innovation at UCD. In addition to working at UCD, he has worked for, or been a consultant to, the World Bank in Washington D.C., the UK Overseas Development Administration and the OECD. He has also held visiting positions at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of California, San Diego. Amongst numerous publications, in 2002, he co-authored (with Brendan Walsh and Frank Convery) After the Celtic Tiger, a popular book, which warned of serious “challenges ahead” for the Irish economy well in advance of the subsequent economic downturn.

Between 2008 and 2011 Peter served as Special Adviser to the Taoiseach (Prime Minister of Ireland) based at Government Buildings. During this time, he was responsible for advising the Taoiseach on economic, enterprise and environmental policy at the height of the worst global economic and financial crisis in the history of the State. In addition to providing advice in all policy areas, Peter was instrumental in developing a medium-term framework for economic growth which included drafting ‘Building Ireland’s Smart Economy: A Framework for Sustainable Economic Renewal’ published by the Government in December 2008. This set out five Action Areas to revive productivity growth and restructure the Irish economy in the aftermath of the international recession and a domestic property boom.

Amongst many policy initiatives to position Ireland as a Global Innovation Hub, Peter was instrumental in establishing the Innovation Taskforce which reported in March 2010. This is a key input into Irish enterprise policy to 2020. He was also a strong advocate for the prioritisation of enterprise funding in the review of capital spending. Peter also led the development of Innovation Fund Ireland, a €500m venture fund which has attracted top tier VCs to Ireland.

Peter’s vast experience of working in government includes working in partnership with senior civil servants as well as some of the leading companies in the world. He was a member of the negotiating team for the revised Programme for Government published in November 2009. In addition to serving, inter alia, Cabinet Committees on Economic Renewal, Climate Change and Energy Security, and Science, Technology and Innovation, he has participated in bilaterals between the Taoiseach and Ministers and has been a member of Irish Government delegations to the European Council, the UN General Assembly, World Economic Forum (Davos), Asia Europe Summits, a series of overseas trade missions, as well as the Taoiseach’s delegations to meet US President Obama and Chinese Premier Wen.

Peter's areas of expertise include: economic growth, productivity and innovation policy; enterprise policy; sustainability and quality of life; behavioural economics; policy analysis; market-based instruments; cost-benefit analysis and environmental valuation; economics of land use and land markets; energy economics and policy. Professor Clinch is author of over 100 publications including books, book chapters, international journal articles and conference proceedings as well as over 60 reports and other publications. He is a co-founder of AP EnvEcon Ltd. In 2007 (with Dr Andrew Kelly) he won NovaUCD's Entrepreneur Award


 

Prof. Brendan M. Walsh - Director

Brendan Walsh is professor emeritus of economics at University College Dublin, where he was Professor of the National Economics of Ireland between 1980 and 2005.  A Member of the Royal Irish Academy and past president of the Irish Economic Association, the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland, and the Economic and Social Research Institute, he was Chairman of Ireland’s National Statistics Board from 2004 to 2009. He is currently a member of the European Statistical Advisory Committee.  He worked as a consultant to numerous Irish public bodies and to the Harvard Institute for International Development, the World Bank, and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.  As well as numerous articles in Irish economic journals, he has published in the Brooking Papers on Economic Activity, the European Economic Review, the European Journal of Economic History, the Canadian Tax Journal, and the World Economy and is co-author of the widely-used textbook The Macroeconomy of Ireland, now entering its fifth edition.  He contributed a chapter entitled “Demography and Irish Economic Growth – Past and Future” to the recently-published book Understanding Ireland’s Economic Crisis, (edited by Anthony Leddin and Stephen Kinsella, Blackhall Press, 2010).

Prof. Frank J. Convery - Senior Partner

Professor Frank Convery is Director of the UCD Earth Sciences Institute. He was formerly chairman of Comhar, Ireland’s Sustainable Development Council, and of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland. He is Emeritus Heritage Trust Professor of Environmental Policy at University College, Dublin. He was formerly Research Professor at the Economic and Social Research Institute, Ireland, Associate Professor of Resource Economics, Duke University, USA and a visiting Professor at both the World Bank and Kyoto University. Frank has remained active on a number of EU wide investigations and bodies, including membership of the Science Committee of the European Environment Agency. Frank has written widely on resource and environmental issues and in 2009 was made honorary president of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. His main research area is the design and application of economic instruments for environmental policy. His most recent book is 'Pricing Carbon' with Ellerman and De Perthuis, Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Prof. A. Denny Ellerman - Senior Partner

Professor Denny Ellerman is internationally recognised as an expert on energy and environmental economics. His research has held a particular focus on climate policy, emissions trading, and the associated interactions with energy markets. He currently holds a parallel part time position as Director of the climate policy research unit at the European University Institute's Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies. He is a former Senior Lecturer at MIT's Sloan School of Management, where he served for many years as the executive director of the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, and the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research. He is a co-author of the leading books on the US SO2 and the EU CO2 Allowance Trading Programs, Markets for Clean Air: The US Acid Rain Program and Pricing Carbon: The European Emissions Trading Scheme. Prior to his time at MIT, Denny spent 18 years in Washington, D.C., working for the US Government (primarily the Department of Energy and its predecessors), the National Coal Association, and Charles River Associates, an economic consulting firm. In 1990, he was President of the International Association for Energy Economics.