John O’Hagan is Professor of Economics at Trinity College Dublin. He is a leading authority on the political economy of Ireland and is a distinguished expert in cultural economics, a field which he helped to found. Professor O’Hagan’s work on themes ranging from social inclusion and the arts to creative industries and clustering is widely published and includes the landmark book (1998) The State and the Arts: An Analysis of Key Economic Policy Issues in Europe and the United States.
His research spans a number of cultural and creative sectors and includes, for example, work on EU competition policies and the funding of state broadcasters in Europe. His conference on The arts, the state, identity and the wealth of nations: Case Studies of Ireland and Scotland held in Dublin in 2009 provided a platform for knowledge exchange with leading industry practitioners and policy-makers from Scotland and Ireland as well as a host of international scholars. Professor O’Hagan took part in an EU-funded internationally comparative study of cultural participation in 2012-14. He is the recipient of J-P Foundation funding (2011-16) for research into the determinants of creative career success. He is Chair of a government-appointed group reviewing value for money in the Irish Arts Council which will report in 2015.