Prof John Coakley
The project’s aims committed the team to specify and assess factors which help and hinder informal and formal cross-border contact, and to inform future policy initiatives on issues such as cross-border partnership, questions of sustainability, potential for inter-communal reconciliation and the impact of European integration.
The project brought a new comparative, interdisciplinary perspective to bear on the study of the border, while exploring pathways to cross-border co-operation on the island.
An important aim of the project was to cement new relationships between researchers north and south of the border. These new links have been strengthened throughout the project; in particular, efforts were made to encourage co-authorship, on a north-south basis where possible, of project working papers.
