Dr Fintan Bracken

Dr Fintan Bracken is part of the Centre for Organisational Research, Data and Analysis (CORDA) in the President’s Office in SETU. Fintan is involved in the development and analysis of data to support university planning, management and strategic activities. Prior to his current role, Fintan worked as Deputy Librarian in Institute Technology Carlow and previously worked as the Research Services and Bibliometrics Librarian in the University of Limerick for four years. He has also worked in the Marine Institute's research library and with IReL, the Irish Research eLibrary. In his library roles, Fintan provided advice to staff, researchers and students on publication strategy, bibliometrics, open access, reference management and maximising research impact. He has conducted research on bird biodiversity in various farmland, woodland and peatland habitats during his PhD and post-doctoral studies in University College Dublin. Before embarking on his library career, he worked as an environmental consultant with WYG Ireland / PH McCarthy Consulting Engineers from 2006 to 2010. In this role, he managed projects, co-ordinated Environmental Impact Statements, conducted ecological surveys, consulted with statutory authorities and prepared tender submissions for various large infrastructural developments.

Dr Bracken has conducted research on bird biodiversity in various farmland, woodland and peatland habitats during his PhD and post-doctoral studies in University College Dublin. During his PhD, he examined bird and butterfly diversity in agricultural land and woodland in Co. Laois and Co. Kildare. Remote sensing using fused Landsat IRS images were used to look at landscape structure in the areas around the six study sites. The project was funded as part of the EU project ‘BioAssess’ by the Environment and Sustainable Development Programme Project No. EVK2-CT1999-00280.

In 2006, Dr Bracken worked on the Environmental Protection Agency funded project ‘BOGLAND’ where he examined the bird communities of twelve sites throughout Ireland representing four peatland habitats: fen, raised bog, montane blanket bog and Atlantic blanket bog. During his MLIS studies, he worked on the capstone project entitled: “The usability and feasibility implications for biology and environmental science researchers of the OJAX++ Virtual Research Environment" with six other students. This project examined using OJAX++ to organise tags from social media into activity streams in order to aid knowledge sharing and collaboration among researchers.

His current research interests include institutional research, open access and bibliometrics.