Brian Power

Brian Power is Director of Corporate Affairs and Strategy.  He is a senior policymaker and former diplomat and, before joining the management team, he served as Head of Forward Planning in Ireland’s Ministry of Education and Skills.  He has held a number of other key senior positions in the ministry, including in the areas of Higher Education, Early Childhood Education, Youth Services and International Affairs and served as Head of Staff in the Office of the Secretary General.  He led major policy and legislative reform programmes in a number of these areas and was honoured to accept the Prime Minister’s Public Service Award for Excellence and Innovation.  He has also held key positions in the Ministries of Justice, Finance and Foreign Affairs, where he headed the Education team at Ireland’s Permanent Representation to the EU in Brussels.  He has served as a member of the High Council of the European University Institute in Florence and as chairman of the EUI’s Budget and Finance Committee.  He co-chaired the Bologna Process Working Group on the Social Dimension of Higher Education in Europe and has also worked on a range of education and inclusion-related issues with international organisations, including the OECD and UNESCO.  Having trained as a policy analyst, he holds an MSc in Leadership and Innovation in the Public Sector from the University of Ulster/LIT and has written and contributed to numerous publications and reports on Irish and European education. He served as Director of Corporate Affairs and Strategy of the Bussola Institute from 2018 to 2022.