Keynote Speaker Announcement: IDEA Conference 2026
We are delighted to announce Zoryana Pshyk as the keynote speaker for
IDEA Conference 2026
, taking place
on Wednesday, 24 June at The Grand Hotel Malahide, Co. Dublin.
This year’s theme,
Education for Liberation: GCE in an Age of Crisis
, draws directly on Paulo Freire’s legacy to explore the role of Global Citizenship Education in today’s world
Zoryana is an accomplished adult educator and researcher whose work puts education for liberation into practice. She is a facilitator with Partners Training for Transformation, Chair of the Kildare Integration Network, and a founding member of Maynooth University of Sanctuary. Her approach is grounded in Freirean critical pedagogy, with a focus on dialogue, action and challenging oppression.
She currently works as a Community Engaged Research Officer at TU Dublin and a Teaching Supervisor at Maynooth University and is completing her PhD in Adult and Community Education at Maynooth University.
Find out more about Zoryana’s work here:
Read Zoryana's full bio: Zoryana Pshyk is an adult educator, facilitator, researcher, and community practitioner. Zoryana was born in Ukraine and has been living in Ireland for the past twenty years and holds both citizenships. Her work is grounded in the belief that education can become a space where people reclaim their voice, dignity, agency, and the possibility of acting together to change the world. Drawing from her own lived experience of migration and her experience of the Irish direct provision system, alongside years of working with asylum seekers, refugee, and marginalised communities, her practice explores how we as educators can help people to unlearn oppression, and move beyond systems of survival, and towards solidarity and collective transformation.
Zoryana’s work across community education, higher education, participatory research, and intercultural practice is deeply underpinned by the philosophy of Paulo Freire and traditions of critical pedagogy that understand education as a shared process of dialogue, reflection, consciousness, and action. Zoryana currently works as a Community Engaged Research Officer with TU Dublin, contributing to the international TOGETHERNESS project, which explores how higher education, communities, and civic partners can work collaboratively to strengthen socially engaged research. Her work focuses on creating participatory and community-engaged spaces where communities are not treated as subjects of research, but as knowledge holders, co-creators, and active participants in shaping educational and social change. She also works as a Teaching Supervisor with Maynooth University, where she previously lectured in Philosophy of Adult Education.
Zoryana is a PhD candidate with the Department of Adult and Community Education, Maynooth University. Her research and writing focused on emancipatory and transformative learning, narrative enquiry on displacement and war, and access to higher education for refugees and asylum seekers. She is the author of A Story from the Margin published in The Adult Learner journal, alongside publications and presentations exploring Freirean praxis, racism, community education, war, and the experiences of displaced communities navigating systems of exclusion and finding their voice through education. Zoryana is also a facilitator with Partners Training for Transformation, chair for the Kildare Integration Network, and one of the founding members of the Maynooth University of Sanctuary.
Zoryana has worked alongside diverse communities across Ireland to create learning spaces rooted in dialogue, storytelling, participation, and shared humanity. She believes that personal is always political. For her, democracy is not simply a political structure or institutional process, but something lived and collectively practiced through critical reflection and action — praxis, that can help communities challenge injustice, build solidarity, and imagine more democratic and compassionate ways of being together in the world. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-0252-7020
Zoryana is an accomplished adult educator and researcher whose work puts education for liberation into practice. She is a facilitator with Partners Training for Transformation, Chair of the Kildare Integration Network, and a founding member of Maynooth University of Sanctuary. Her approach is grounded in Freirean critical pedagogy, with a focus on dialogue, action and challenging oppression.
She currently works as a Community Engaged Research Officer at TU Dublin and a Teaching Supervisor at Maynooth University and is completing her PhD in Adult and Community Education at Maynooth University.
Find out more about Zoryana’s work here:
- ORCID Profile: ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-0252-7020
- International TOGETHERNESS project with TU Dublin
Read Zoryana's full bio: Zoryana Pshyk is an adult educator, facilitator, researcher, and community practitioner. Zoryana was born in Ukraine and has been living in Ireland for the past twenty years and holds both citizenships. Her work is grounded in the belief that education can become a space where people reclaim their voice, dignity, agency, and the possibility of acting together to change the world. Drawing from her own lived experience of migration and her experience of the Irish direct provision system, alongside years of working with asylum seekers, refugee, and marginalised communities, her practice explores how we as educators can help people to unlearn oppression, and move beyond systems of survival, and towards solidarity and collective transformation.
Zoryana’s work across community education, higher education, participatory research, and intercultural practice is deeply underpinned by the philosophy of Paulo Freire and traditions of critical pedagogy that understand education as a shared process of dialogue, reflection, consciousness, and action. Zoryana currently works as a Community Engaged Research Officer with TU Dublin, contributing to the international TOGETHERNESS project, which explores how higher education, communities, and civic partners can work collaboratively to strengthen socially engaged research. Her work focuses on creating participatory and community-engaged spaces where communities are not treated as subjects of research, but as knowledge holders, co-creators, and active participants in shaping educational and social change. She also works as a Teaching Supervisor with Maynooth University, where she previously lectured in Philosophy of Adult Education.
Zoryana is a PhD candidate with the Department of Adult and Community Education, Maynooth University. Her research and writing focused on emancipatory and transformative learning, narrative enquiry on displacement and war, and access to higher education for refugees and asylum seekers. She is the author of A Story from the Margin published in The Adult Learner journal, alongside publications and presentations exploring Freirean praxis, racism, community education, war, and the experiences of displaced communities navigating systems of exclusion and finding their voice through education. Zoryana is also a facilitator with Partners Training for Transformation, chair for the Kildare Integration Network, and one of the founding members of the Maynooth University of Sanctuary.
Zoryana has worked alongside diverse communities across Ireland to create learning spaces rooted in dialogue, storytelling, participation, and shared humanity. She believes that personal is always political. For her, democracy is not simply a political structure or institutional process, but something lived and collectively practiced through critical reflection and action — praxis, that can help communities challenge injustice, build solidarity, and imagine more democratic and compassionate ways of being together in the world. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-0252-7020
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October 20, 2026
Date: 25 November, 10.00am - 4.00pm Location: Brandsma Room, Carmelite Centre, Aungier St, Dublin 2 This workshop will provide an opportunity to explore the findings and recommendations of the Global North-Global South Partnerships in GCE Research , commissioned by Concern Worldwide . The event will bring together organisations working in Global Citizenship Education (GCE) to discuss the research findings, share experiences of partnership-building, and reflect on good practices for equitable and meaningful collaboration. Participants will also have the opportunity to consider how partnerships can be developed and strengthened to support GCE work and contribute to mutual learning across different contexts. The workshop is open to organisations and practitioners with an interest in Global Citizenship Education, research, and international partnership development.

October 6, 2026
IDEA calls for GCE to be included in Northern Ireland’s new curriculum framework IDEA recently shared its views on the new draft Northern Ireland Curriculum Framework as part of the public consultation, which closed on 30 September. Our submission welcomed the framework’s aim to give learners “access to powerful knowledge and develop the skills needed to participate fully in society, the economy and civic life.” However, we also highlighted a key gap: “global” has been dropped from the scope of citizenship education within the curriculum. Global Citizenship Education (GCE) is not mentioned at all. Alongside an important focus on the local reality in the North, we consider it vital that the curriculum also addresses the global reality. As UNESCO puts it, “economically, environmentally, socially and politically, we are linked to other people on the planet as never before” (UNESCO, 2026). We recommended integrating key dimensions of GCE and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) into the framework without creating a new strand or making widespread amendments. Changes to the language and framing could embed GCE and ESD principles in the core capabilities and in subjects such as Geography, History, English and Drama, and Personal, Social, Civic and Careers (PSCC). Our recommendations echoed the key asks of the CADA submission . IDEA also contributed to that submission through a focus group discussion and by reviewing and providing feedback on the draft. Our recommendations were to: Include GCE and ESD as concepts in the capabilities document and cross-reference them in the subjects for Geography, History, English and Drama and PSCC. Include the concept of global citizenship in the capabilities document and in PSCC, as a distinct but complementary concept to citizenship and civic understanding. Include the concepts of solidarity, justice and local-global interconnection and interdependence (and thus shared responsibility) in the subjects English and Drama and PSCC. Increase the progression of human rights knowledge in PSCC across Stages towards its global application by Key Stage 3. Add shared responsibility and justice as key dimensions of sustainable development and global inequality to the environmental and ecological responsibility capability, as well as to Geography. Include addressing misinformation, disinformation and factchecking under the language and communication capability and in English and PSCC. Build on Northern Ireland’s experience of peace education by including opportunities, particularly in History and PSCC, for pupils to explore connections between peace and reconciliation locally and globally as part of GCE and ESD. Thank you to IDEA members who reviewed our submission and provided feedback. You can read our full submission here .

September 26, 2026
Date: Tuesday 01 December, 10.00am – 4.00pm Location: Richmond Barracks, Inchicore, Dublin 8, D08 YY05 IDEA is looking forward to welcoming all members of the Code of Good Practice for Development Education to our next Code network meeting on Tuesday 1 December, in Richmond Barracks in Inchicore, Dublin. There are places for two representatives, staff, volunteers, etc., from each Code member. One of the commitments in joining the Code is to contribute to the Community of Practice for this Code, including sharing successes and learning with other Code members and attending at least one of two Code network meetings annually. If you have questions, please contact code@ideaonline.ie.










