Katy Hayward

Katy Hayward is a Northern Irish academic and writer based at Queens University, Belfast.

Academic career

Hayward is a professor of Political Sociology in the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work at Queens in Belfast, with a specialism in the politics of Brexit, conflict resolution and borders. She completed her undergraduate degree in Peace and Conflict Studies at Magee College in 1999. She was awarded a PhD in 2002 by University College, Dublin on the impact of European integration on cross-border relations in Ireland.
She has fellowships including at ‘’UK in a Changing Europe’’, an ESRC-funded initiative, as well as at the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queens. In 2019, she became an Eisenhower Fellow.
In 2023 she was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy.

In addition to her academic writing, Hayward writes regularly for The Guardian, Belfast Telegraph, and the Irish Times.

Hayward is a trustee of Conciliation Resources, an independent organisation working with people in conflict to prevent violence and build peace.