News & Events

Sheehy Skeffington Annual Lecture 2025

5 November 2025

Workshop: Gender and Intersectionality in Whistleblowing

4 November 2025

Recognition for Excellence at the Irish Academy of Management Conference 2025

8 September 2025

Recognition for Excellence at the Irish Academy of Management Conference 2025

The paper “Incentivising Ethics: Should Internal Whistleblowing Be Rewarded? A Cross-Country Study” by Dr. Bashir Alao was honoured with the Best Paper Award in the Leadership & Organisational Behaviour track at the Irish Academy of Management Conference, hosted this year at Maynooth University.

Whistleblowing and Trust: New Study

31 August 2025

Signalling Trustworthiness of Internal Whistleblowing Channels in Organizations: Temporality matters! by Wim Vandekerckhove, Marianna Fotaki, Kate Kenny and D. Derya Özdemir Kaya has just been published in Organization Studies.

New Publication: Whistleblowing as Disclosure Injustice

4 June 2025

New Publication: Whistleblowing as Disclosure Injustice

We are pleased to announce the recent publication of the article "Whistleblowing as Disclosure Injustice: Testimonial and Structural Barriers to Being Heard" in Gender, Work and Organization Journal by Prof Kate Kenny and Dr Maria Batishcheva from the University of Galway.

 

Feminist Philosophy Meeting 2025: Celebrating 50 Years of the Sex Discrimination Act

4 June 2025

Professor Kate Kenny to Participate in Feminist Philosophy Meeting 2025

To celebrate feminist philosophy and the 50th anniversary of the passing of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, we are excited to announce that Professor Kate Kenny will participate in the Feminist Philosophy Meeting 2025, hosted at the University of Bath on Monday, June 9th.

Professor Kate Kenny’s Participation at the European Whistleblowing Conference

4 April 2025

On 4 April, the European Whistleblowing Conference: Collaborative Pathways to Integrity was held in Brussels, bringing together a community of professionals dedicated to advancing whistleblowing practices across Europe. This event was a collaborative effort between key organizations, including the European Whistleblowing Institute (EWI), Whistleblowing International Network (WIN), Network of European Integrity and Whistleblowing Authorities (NEIWA), Transparency International, Transparency International Greece, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, EDHEC Business School, and the University of Galway.

Management Discipline Research Seminar

19 March 2025

On Wednesday, 19th March 2025, the Management Discipline Research Seminar took place, featuring Prof. Susan Stewart (Western Illinois University) and Bashir Alao (University of Galway) as speakers, who addressed critical topics related to human resource management and the prevention of workplace harassment.

🔔 Registrations are now open for the European Whistleblowing Conference

9 March 2025

🔔 Registrations are now open for the European Whistleblowing Conference

This conference is the first of its kind, bringing together key stakeholders from the European Commission, Council of Europe, EU National Authorities, leading civil society actors, academics, lawyers, and integrity professionals.

Book Launch. Regulators of Last Resort: Whistleblowers, the Limits of the Law and the Power of Partnerships (Cambridge University Press, 2025)

28 February 2025

Book Launch: "Regulators of Last Resort: Whistleblowers, the Limits of the Law and the Power of Partnerships"

On Friday, February 28, 2025, the book Regulators of Last Resort: Whistleblowers, the Limits of the Law and the Power of Partnerships (Cambridge University Press, 2025) was launched at the James Hardiman Library of the University of Galway. 

New Book: Regulators of Last Resort: Whistleblowers, the Limits of the Law and the Power of Partnerships (Cambridge University Press, 2025)

21 February 2025

Professor Kate Kenny will launch her new book Regulators of Last Resort: Whistleblowers, the Limits of the Law and the Power of Partnerships, Cambridge University Press, inspired by the people who work to support whistleblowers. 

 

Big Silence: Whistleblower Reprisal and a Fifty-Year Campaign, One Year On

15 January 2025

‘Did you get to sit down and have a brief meeting with the Minister for Justice?’

‘No. Absolutely Not. As usual, the Minister was unavailable… I have never met a Minister for Justice. In forty years of campaigning for a public inquiry.’

‘Ever?’ ‘Ever.’

‘I am told in the forty-seven years since, there have been 23 Ministers for Justice.

You have never had a meeting, face to face, with any of them?’

‘No. Never.’

RTE Drivetime, Interview with Osgur Breatnach, September 2023.

New Report: Stakeholder mapping and civil society initiatives focusing on gender and whistleblowing, a practice review

12 December 2024

A New Law: But where is gender?

Since the implementation of the new EU Whistleblowing Directive in 2021, we have seen much activity in the NGO and Civil Society space focusing on supporting whistleblowers and whistleblowing. But new research shows gender is still a marginal issue. This is a concern Whistleblowing is critical for bringing issues of fraud, waste and abuse to light.  Whistleblowing reprisal remains a significant problem, while many workers report a preference to stay silent rather than report concerns. The new EU Directive addresses these issues head-on, providing stronger protections for workers whistleblowing, and directly requiring organizations to provide channels and supports for safe and effective whistleblowing.

Partnering with Disclosers- Learning from Whistleblowers

26 November 2024

Research shows that public whistleblowers require partners if they are to prevail. Working in coalition with supportive experts – whether in law, media, or advocacy - is critical when bringing wrongdoing to light. As we witness over and over, high-profile whistleblowing cases succeed based on the strength of these alliances.

New article in The Conversation UK -- The Four ways Mohamed Al Fayed silenced whistleblowers in his organisation.

15 November 2024

New article in The Conversation UK -- The Four ways Mohamed Al Fayed silenced whistleblowers in his organization. Some textbook strategies. Some less common.
The article describes:

• The organisation as a fortress
• Hi-tech surveillance
•  Intense legal pressure
• Dehumanising targets

The Shield, The Support and the Loudspeaker: Collective Whistleblowing by Ireland's Women of Honour

23 October 2024

The Women of Honour meanwhile say that, having found their voice, they are not going away. I was listening to RTÉ’s radio documentary, Women of Honour. It was 2021. I had been researching whistleblowing for almost fifteen years. But this was something new. During the hour-long show, Katie Hannon interviewed former female officers in the Irish army, navy and air corps about their experiences of sexual assault and harassment at work. About how their reports had been ignored by higher-ups, again and again. 

On World Whistleblower Day 2024: What about the Women?

3 June 2024

When Nathalie, an executive in a large Parisian bank, questioned her boss about secret parallel accounting systems supporting a vast system of tax evasion, she could not have predicted the response: “He asked me if I was having a fit of jealousy because one of the colleagues who participated in the fraud was a woman.” Our research published this year  shows how women whistleblowers can find their gender is used against them when employers retaliate. Even senior executives with years of experience find being female is interpreted as a weakness, affecting their capacity to reliably detect wrongdoing. Gender is weaponized as a form of discrediting.

Dutch Whistleblowing Authority Huis Voor Klokkenluiders launches new video inspired by our work

14 March 2024

The Dutch Whistleblowers Authority provides advice and support for persons who want to report a possible wrongdoing within the context of their work-related activities. The Authority also conducts investigations into wrongdoing within organizations and into reprisals against reporting persons, and provides know-how for organizations on how to improve their internal integrity policy. As part of its information and awareness-raising campaign, the team at the authority developed a video emphasising the need for effective supports for whistleblowers, which was inspired by Professor Kenny and Professor Fotaki's work on the Costs of Whistleblowing

See more here and visit Huis Voor Klokkenluiders

European Commission-funded project begins: BRIGHT: Building Resilience through Integrity, Good Governance, and Honesty Training

14 March 2024

Kate Kenny alongside Professor Wim Vandekerckhove from EDHEC Business School begins a groundbreaking project funded by the European Commission. Led by the European Whistleblowing Institute (EWI), the team has secured funding for the "BRIGHT: Building Resilience through Integrity, Good Governance, and Honesty Training" project. With a focus on promoting equality and inclusion, this project aims to shape efforts to streamline these fundamental principles across #whistleblowing systems and practices, using an intersectional approach. 
BRIGHT is a holistic endeavour that brings together various stakeholders, including civil society, practitioners, and researchers, to effect positive change. Through research, capacity building, advocacy, and policy dialogue, we aim to drive progressive improvements in European whistleblowing practices.

Invited Talk at Open University: 'Voice and Protest'

8 March 2024

The presentation, "Her Fearless Speech? Gender and Speaking Out", mapped out the landscape of gender and whistleblowing based on existing research studies, and proposed a new conceptual framework.

This talk was delivered by Kate Kenny as part of the Open University's event "International Women's Day: Voice and protest", organised by the Gendered Organisational Practice (GOP) research cluster. GOP takes feminist solidarity as a starting point to create a space where feminists of any gender can share insights and knowledge from academic study and practice.  More details of this talk and of the event

Podcast with Zelda Perkins, Campaigner and Whistleblower

14 February 2024

Episode 3 of Parrhesia Inc's podcast series interviewed Zelda Perkins. Zelda is the first woman to break her NDA against Harvey Weinstein, who has since founded Can’t Buy My Silence which aims to shed light on the harmful practice of using Non Disclosure Agreements to silence individuals.

Insights into the research around whistleblowing and NDAs, the language surrounding whistleblowing, and what gives people the strength to speak up, were the focus of Kate Kenny's contribution to the interview panel.

The episode is hosted by Martin Bright and Natasha Lovel. More details and listen back here.

The Future of Whistleblowing Research: Five Key Themes and Questions

23 September 2023

The landscape of whistleblowing in organizations is rapidly changing. New laws are emerging worldwide. We see changes to organizational policies and practices, new technologies supporting these changes, and a growing public awareness of whistleblowing.

The future of empirical whistleblowing research is critical to examine now. To date, whistleblowing studies are carried out in many different disciplines. Results are published in a wide variety of journals, hence debates are often disconnected. Yet some cross-cutting themes and questions emerge. Reflecting on these, this note suggests critical themes for the future of empirical research, and tentative research questions. Comments and feedback welcome, please email: d.b.lewis@mdx.ac.uk

Postdoc positions: Whistleblowing and Information Technology

14 August 2023

An upcoming postdoc opportunity at University of Galway:

16 funded postdoc positions are available via SyMeCo programme (https://symeco.lero.ie/).  

As part of this scheme, I would like to supervise postdoc researchers on topics including:

• Technology's role in facilitating whistleblowing disclosures
• Surveillance technologies pre-empting workers' disclosures of wrongdoing
• Technologies for regulation and compliance and the role of disclosure
• Whistleblowing in big tech and AI contexts
• Worker unions, alliances and solidarity movements in an era of surveillance capitalism & other topics relating to technology and whistleblowing

Postdocs will work as part of research groups LERO, and whistleblowingimpact.org, based at University of Galway, JE Cairnes School of Business and Economics.  Please reach out to me to discuss potential projects in advance. Kate.kenny@universityofgalway.ie

The faithful, risky whistleblowing of Sinead O'Connor

29 July 2023

Note: Published a version of this on RTE Brainstorm, summer 2023

She wanted to keep the contract she had made in her youth: to stand up for truth and justice in the face of power. That’s how Sinead O’Connor explained her most well-known act of defiance. Any contract she ended up making with the music industry would always be secondary to that: ‘I was just being me’, she said.

Sinead O’Connor defied the code of silence around child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. By tearing up the photo of Pope John Paul II live on U.S. television in 1992, she spoke out for hundreds of thousands of children who had been violently abused in his institution's care. This act of parrhesia- speaking truth to power- was risky. Sinead acted alone and the consequences were harsh. Her experience reflects what can happen to whistleblowers. Researching whistleblowing for over ten years, I have interviewed many workers who spoke out. As part of this weekend's collective mourning for a beloved singer and activist, my thoughts are drawn to the parallels with Sinead’s story.

 

Feminist social movements and whistleblowing disclosures: Ireland's Women of Honour (by Kate Kenny)

3 July 2023

What learnings can all whistleblowing and whistleblowers take from the recent #MeToo phenomena and disclosures of sexual harassment and sexual violence? This article highlights how social movements based on workers disclosing have had a dramatic impact on workplaces worldwide—because of whistleblowers coming together.  Solidarity can help effective disclosures reach an audience, and create a shield against reprisal. Ireland’s Women of Honour case, as part of #militaryMeToo disclosures, is an exemplar with relevance for international collectives. Read more: This article is published in Gender Work and Organization via Open Access

Professor Kate Kenny joins University of Essex Centre for Work, Organization and Society as Associate Member

14 May 2023

The Centre for Work, Organisation and Society aims to support cross-disciplinary research on work, society and organisational life. Directed by Professors Melissa Tyler and Philip Hancock and Dr Sophie Hales, the Centre is a hub for internationally recognised, innovative and critical research on all aspects of work, organisations and society. Its interdisciplinary research draws on the humanities and social sciences, bringing in perspectives from disciplines such as cultural studies, history, literary theory, philosophy, psychology, sociology and political economy. The Centre's strengths lie in social scientific research with a largely qualitative orientation, with growing capacity in aesthetic and visual methods, and workplace ethnography. More details

The Future of Whistleblowing Research: On-Campus Keynote and Panel Discussion, 30th March

24 February 2023

Whistleblowing is a topic of interest for scholars and practitioners in Law, Business Ethics, Social Sciences and Management. With the incoming EU Whistleblower Directive (2021) changing the landscape of disclosure at workplaces across Europe, alongside changes to laws in many other countries worldwide, the future of research in this area is critical to examine. Key issues include theories of whistleblowing, ethics of whistleblowing, legal systems for whistleblower protection, transparency and speak-up systems. Join us for a Keynote Presentation by Professor David Lewis, Middlesex University, on 'The Future of Whistleblowing Research'. 30th March, time: 13.00- 14.15, Venue CA110 St Anthony's, University of Galway North Campus. For further inquiries about the event, kindly contact the organizing committee members: Bashir Alao (B.Alao1@universityofgalway.ie) and Maria Batishcheva (M.Batishcheva1@universityofgalway.ie).

25th January 2023 Post-truth, Freedom of Speech.

25 January 2023

Professor Marianna Fotaki hosted a webinar on the topic of ‘Post-truth, Freedom of Speech and Speaking Out’ at Warwick University’s Socrates Club, alongside Prof Hari Tsoukas.  Speakers included Professor Iain Munro, Newcastle University Business School; Professor Mollie Painter, Nottingham Business School; and Professor Wim Vandekerckhove, EDHEC, France. More details

23rd January 2023, Prof Kate Kenny: Keynote at Aalto University Department of Management Studies.

23 January 2023

Prof Kate Kenny gave a keynote and hosted a workshop on research articles with staff and PhD students, including the 2020 Organization Studies publication, ‘Whistleblower subjectivities: Organization and passionate attachment. More details.  Read article here.

24th November 2022, Prof Kate Kenny Panellist at Integrity at Work Conference

24 November 2022

Kate Kenny spoke at Transparency International Ireland’s Integrity at Work Conference on the topic of ‘Measures of Support for Whistleblowers’, alongside Helene Donnelly OBE – Ambassador for Cultural Change at the UK NHS and Dr David Morgan, Consultant Psychotherapist. More details

Call for Abstracts: Whistleblowing Paper Development Workshop (Galway, 30 March 2023)

17 November 2022

We invite you to the University of Galway to take part in a paper development workshop and networking forum on the topic of whistleblowing. The event is aimed at early career researchers working in the area. We invite a broad range of submissions in areas such as, but not limited to, theories of whistleblowing, ethics of whistleblowing, legal systems for whistleblower protection, transparency, and speak-up systems. The day will consist of a keynote from Professor David Lewis, a group discussion led by Dr. Meghan Van Portfliet and Dr. Lauren Kierans BL, and paper development roundtables hosted by senior academics, where attendees will be given feedback on their works in progress.

To attend:

We would be delighted if you were able to develop and share your ideas (both fully-fledged ideas and those that are more embryonic) by emailing your paper abstract (max. 300 words) to Bashir Alao (B.Alao1@universityofgalway.ie) and Maria Batishcheva (M.Batishcheva1@universityofgalway.ie)  by  15 January 2023. For those that are accepted, full papers will be required by 15 March 2023.

The Emerging Role of Whistleblowers in Democracies by Robert Tibbo

3 November 2022

On 3rd November, Professor Iain Munro hosted a public lecture by Robert Tibbo, Human Rights Lawyer at Newcastle University, as part of its public lecture series. Mr. Tibbo is known for his work in the areas of administrative and constitutional law focused on human rights and asylum and refugee law. He has acted for clients in high legal cases including American whistleblower Edward Snowden, the Snowden Refugees, as well as Xiao Hui - Australia’s largest-ever case of insider trading. Mr. Tibbo is a Visiting Professor/Professor of Practice at the Business School at Newcastle University where he has taught the MBA, and given public lectures and workshops co-organized by the Business School, the Centre for Human Rights and Social Justice, and the Centre for Asian studies.

Prof Kate Kenny as panellist at “Whistleblowing Canada Research Society” International Conference

27 May 2022

Kate Kenny joined a panel discussing the topic of “Whistleblowers, Trauma, and Reprisals”, focused on the mental health impacts of whistleblowing. Other members included: Richard Rapoport, MSW, Psychotherapist, Jennifer Fraser, PhD, and Capt. Sean Bruyea (Ret’d) former Intelligence Officer, Canadian Air Force. The panel was moderated by: Julie Gouin, MA, co, ASC. The event was part of the inaugural Whistleblowing Canada Research Society Conference. Watch back here.

Whistleblowing and Legal Support

26 April 2022

Dr. Lauren Kierans (BL), Maynooth University presents "Whistleblowing and Legal Support", the third webinar in the series "Whistleblowing and External Partners" run with Cork University Business School, NUI Galway, and the whistleblowingimpact.org team. In this webinar, three legal experts speak about their experiences of working with whistleblowing disclosures, and the best practices, challenges, and lessons learned. Watch the full episode in the video below.

Prof Kate Kenny speaks at workshop on “Whistleblowing, Human Rights and Social Justice”

15 March 2022

On 15th March 2022, this event brought together a multidisciplinary panel of experts concerned with whistleblower protections from the fields of law and the social sciences. The workshop focused on overlapping issues related to whistleblowing, human rights, and social justice, issues of crucial importance in the development of whistleblower protections, as well as being germane to the disclosures of whistleblowers who often reveal the corruption that is of great significance for promoting both human rights and social justice. The speakers include Professor Robert Tibbo (Newcastle University, lawyer for refugee rights and Mr. Edward Snowden), Professor Kate Kenny (National University of Ireland Galway), and Professor David Lewis (Head of the Whistleblowing Research Unit at Middlesex University and convenor of the International Whistleblowing Research Network). The event was co-hosted by the Newcastle University Business School, the Newcastle University Forum for Human Rights and Social Justice, and the Irish Centre for Human Rights.

Whistleblowing and Advocacy Groups

12 March 2022

Dr. Meghan Van Portfliet of Cork University Business School championed discussions with three professionals from three advocacy groups that offer various support to whistleblowers. This is part of the ongoing seminar series on Whistleblower Partners and Allies. The panelists shared their perspectives on the help that whistleblowers needed. See detail in the video below. The NUI ERC research grant funded this event.

Whistleblowing and the Media

28 February 2022

Professor Kate Kenny facilitated the interview of four journalists in the seminar series on whistleblowing and the media hosted by the Whitaker Institute at NUI Galway on February 23, 2022. The four speakers shared their experiences of working with whistleblowing disclosures and the best practices, challenges, and lessons learned.