Titles of Honorary Professor and Honorary Professors of Practice are awarded to recognise and reward the contribution of people of distinction to teaching, research and input through professional standing, to Queen’s University Belfast.

Shane is a political philosopher and critical social theorist.

He served as Executive Dean (PVC) of the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Queen’s University Belfast from 2009 to 2015.  He was instrumental in the establishment of this Institute in 2012, as a key initiative of the AHSS Faculty Strategic Plan.

After studying for his BA (History and Politics) and MA (Moral and Political Philosophy) at University College Dublin, Shane pursued doctoral studies at the University of Glasgow.  He worked as a Lecturer in the University of Manchester before first moving to Queen’s in 1994.  His early research was focused on theories of social justice, equality and democracy, but he soon also began to address specific challenges in Northern Ireland’s peace process by investigating key elements of the demands of justice in ethno-nationally diverse contexts.  He was promoted to be Professor of Political Theory at Queen’s in 2002.

In 2004/05 Shane was Senior Fulbright Scholar at the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at the University of Pennsylvania.  He has also held Visiting Professorships at the University of Hong Kong, Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and the Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.

Shane became Head of the School of Politics at Queen’s in 2001.  Having led three differently configured schools over an eight-year period, in April 2009 he joined the University Executive when he became Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.

In 2016 Shane left Queen’s to become Pro Vice-Chancellor for Planning and Advancement at Keele University in England. He went on to become Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost at the University of Dundee in 2021 and he served as the Interim Principal and Vice-Chancellor at the same institution in 2024/25.

Having retired from senior executive leadership, Shane is excited to take up the role of Honorary Professor in the Institute.  This will allow him to re-engage as an interdisciplinary political theorist, driven by the concern to transform conflicts positively through the delivery of social and global justice.  The research Shane plans to undertake in the coming years builds on some initial work he has done in recent times, to develop a critical theoretical account of the university as a social institution.