Ciarán Ó Cuinn, currently executive director for external and strategic affairs at Dublin City University, Ireland, is to become director of the Middle East Desalination Research Center in Oman.
Announcing the appointment on 13 September 2013, MEDRC chairman Sayyid Badr bin Hamad Albusaidi, secretary general of Oman’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, said, “Ó Cuinn’s experience in international relations and the development of cross-border economic, infrastructural and research collaborations will help further achieve the MEDRC mission to address the water needs of the Core Parties and the countries of the MENA region.”
Ó Cuinn responded: “MEDRC exists to address two of the greatest regional and global grand challenges facing us today – securing peace and environmental sustainability. Working in the context of the Middle East Peace Process to build co-operation between the core parties and address the urgent water needs of the region, I believe an impactful MEDRC is more necessary now than ever before”.
Ó Cuinn is a former policy adviser to the Irish government in which role he was involved in international relations, conflict resolution and both renewables and energy policy. In the context of the Irish Peace Process, he worked on significant cross-border economic, infrastructural and policy collaborations. Most recently, as an executive director of a research-intensive university, he developed significant international collaborations in the fields of research and academia.