Katy Hayward

Katy Hayward is Professor of Political Sociology at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, where she is also co-Director of the Centre for International Borders Research and a Fellow of the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice. In 2019-22, she was a ‘UK in a Changing Europe’ Senior Fellow, leading a project on ‘The post-Brexit status and future of Northern Ireland’. In 2023/24 she was a Europe’s Futures Fellow (Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen/ERSTE Foundation) working on the subject of the role of the University in democracy.

The recipient of a special Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize and ‘Political Communicator of the Year’ award (2019) for her work on Brexit, the Irish border and the 1998 Agreement, Professor Hayward has written and presented to media, policy, civic and academic audiences worldwide.