IDEA Appoints New CEO

We Are Delighted to Announce our New CEO

IDEA is delighted to announce the appointment of Ruairí McKiernan as our new CEO. With over 20 years of experience as a respected non-profit leader, activist, and social innovator, Ruairí brings a wealth of knowledge and passion to our organisation. 


Ruairí is the founder and former CEO of the pioneering national youth organisation Spunout. He served on the Council of State for seven years as one of President Michael D. Higgins's appointees. He was part of the founding team behind Uplift, the digital campaigning organisation, and established Change Innovations, a social impact consultancy. Ruairí has served on the boards of the Soar Foundation and Gaisce. He has held leadership roles with the refugee and migrant rights organisation Doras and the global empathy education charity Narrative 4. He has also worked closely with the peace and justice group Afri on development education, public engagement, and campaigning for many years.


Ruairí’s international experience includes youth development work in Tanzania, and he recently returned from living in Australia, where he focused on Indigenous rights and advocating for gambling industry reform. 


His activism has spanned various causes, including anti-war campaigns, environmental protection, mental health reform, and gender-based violence. Ruairí is also a regular media contributor, a published non-fiction author, and the host of a popular social change podcast, Love and Courage. He is a Fulbright Fellow in Civic Engagement and holds a degree in Management, and an MA in Counselling and Psychotherapy. He is currently undertaking a Postgraduate qualification in Sustainability Leadership. 


"It is a great privilege to serve IDEA as CEO. I've had the good fortune of working with IDEA and many of its members over the years. I've always been struck by the sense of integrity, passion, and dedication among the IDEA community, and the culture of care, cooperation, solidarity, and professionalism that underpins it.


This is a community ready-made for these extraordinary times. The climate emergency, biodiversity loss, war, genocide, disinformation, extremism, racism, and rampant inequality — the threats to life on our shared planet are many and increasingly urgent. If ever there was a time to unleash the vast liberating power of Development Education and Global Citizenship Education, it is now. Herein lies a historic opportunity: a call to radical reimagining that requires us to stand firmly with the oppressed, forge new and diverse alliances, and take bold and fearless action to inspire new hope for humanity and our beautiful planet.


I look forward to working with the staff, the National Council, our members, partners, funders, and the broader community as we work together for a world of peace, justice, and possibility."  Ruairí McKiernan


We look forward to the energy, experience, and vision Ruairí will bring to IDEA as we expand our impact on development education and global citizenship education. 

Call for Tender: Design of an Interactive Data Visualisation Tool, Theory of Impact for Global Citizenship Education in Ireland

October 8, 2025
We are looking for a consultant to design an interactive data visualisation tool for our Theory of Impact for Global Citizenship Education in Ireland. The consultant will lead the design or tailoring of off-the-shelf survey software and analytics software to our needs, in collaboration with IDEA staff. Please submit a tender including a description of stages in the development process, number of days, expected fee, and experience of relevant personnel for the work to be carried out to anya@ideaonline.ie . The deadline for application is Wednesday, 29 October, 5.00pm. Read the full terms of reference here.

Anya’s Next Chapter: Farewell, Legacy, and Our New Recruitment

October 6, 2025
After three remarkable years with IDEA, we are sad to share that Anya Sparynska is moving abroad to begin a new adventure. During her time with us, Anya made an indelible mark - first by shaping a pioneering programme role, and later by guiding us in a capacity development role that strengthened our impact across Ireland’s development education sector. From designing and implementing innovative initiatives to building partnerships and capacity across our member organisations, Anya has left IDEA stronger, more connected, and more ambitious for the future. “I am sad to leave at such a pivotal time in IDEA: we are faced with unspeakable horror, as the need for justice and accountability grows ever more urgent. I have seen, however, our members and staff respond with creativity, humanity and dedication to these challenging times and find inspiration in it, even at this darkest hour. A desire to be close to my family and the pressure of the housing crisis have driven me to Brussels, but I know I will be back as Ireland - it’s passionate, brave and kind people - now feels like home. I will be sure to follow IDEA and our members’ work closely in the coming year and hope to stay in touch! “Working at IDEA has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my career. Seeing ideas and passion turn into real impact and change has been incredibly fulfilling - I’ll carry those lessons, and the very special friendships made along the way with me always.”

Launch of IDEA's Theory of Impact for GCE

September 26, 2025
Date: Tuesday, 04 November, from 3.30–4.30pm Location: Online via Zoom IDEA is thrilled to invite members to the online launch of our new “Theory of Impact for Global Citizenship Education” on Tuesday, 04 November, from 3.30–4.30pm, Online via Zoom. During this session, we will present the model, share insights into the process behind its development, and explore how it will be used to strengthen impact across the sector. We will also introduce a new tool in progress, an interactive data visualisation map designed to showcase our collective impact as a network. For many years, IDEA and its members have been grappling with the concept of impact in Development Education/Global Citizenship Education (GCE). As GCE practitioners, tracking impact helps us to identify how, where and with whom our work is creating positive change, as well as investigating areas in which our impact could be stronger. Furthermore, we can also benefit from examining the collective impact of GCE carried out by the wide-ranging work of IDEA members, and from exploring how these impacts contribute to the major social changes to which the GCE community aspires. Driven therefore by the need to understand how projects and programmes are collectively “making a difference” in IDEA we looked at models that could help us visualise and capture GCE “impact networks”. We formulated our vision of impact and then a theory of how we expect this desired impact to be achieved to allow us to map our activities and collect data to corroborate that theory. This Theory of Impact model is how we hope to illustrate this complex GCE impact network. Building on work done by IDEA over many years including building sectoral capacity in using Results Frameworks for GCE, our Quality & Impact working group, engagement with Irish Aid on their Performance Measurement Framework (PMF), and the successful roll-out of a Code of Good Practice for DE/GCE, this Theory of Impact represent the next stage of our effort to ‘develop a consistent approach to measuring impact among the sector’. We are therefore thrilled to invite you to the presentation of our ‘Theory of Impact for GCE’. At this online presentation, we will tell you about the process that led to the creation of this model, how it will be used and what we hope it could bring to the sector. We will also touch on a new tool being developed based on the model, which should allow the creation of an interactive data visualisation map of our collective impact as a network. Join us as we launch into this exciting new phase of our Impact Measurement work. Join us as we begin this exciting new phase of our Impact Measurement work. Register below!