Grainne completed a DPhil at the University of Oxford (Christ Church) (2009), an MSc at Queen’s University, Belfast (1999), and a BSc (Hons) at the University of Ulster (1998). 

Grainne is a Senior Lecturer in the Division of Social Sciences, a core member of the Centre for Citizenship, Conflict, Identity and Diversity and an affiliate of the Centre for Applied Childhood, Youth and Family Research. She researches feminism and feminist activism, anti-racism and human rights activism, social movements, and young people’s social, political, cultural, and civic participation.

Grainne was a lead researcher on the European Commission, Horizon 2020 project, entitled Partispace: Spaces and styles of participation. Formal, non-formal and informal possibilities of young people’s participation in European cities (partispace.eu). Partispace, which ran from 2015 to 2018, explored young people’s political and social participation in the public sphere - in formal, non-formal and informal settings - and took place in eight cities across Europe.

Grainne is leading/ co-leading the following research projects:

• Building Networks of Resilience project, funded by the Coronavirus Community Support Fund, distributed by The National Lottery Community Fund, a collaboration between RAPAR, Migrant Voice and Kanlungan Filipino Consortium
• COME:ON (Culture – Occupation – Mobility – Europe : Operational Network!), funded by the European Union's Erasmus+ European Youth Together programme
• OUYE (Opening Universities for Youth in Europe), funded by the European Union's Erasmus+ European Youth Together programme
• Occupying hostile environments: creating feminist spaces, funded by University of Huddersfield
• Making Spaces: exploring feminist responses and survival strategies in the Covid-19 pandemic, funded by University of Huddersfield
• How social movements move: a local case study of female post-secondary students' understanding and uptake of #MeToo, funded by the University of Calgary
• Creating a living charter of youth rights: Greater Manchester, funded by the Office of the Mayor of Greater Manchester
• Migration and lived experience: displaced young people living in Europe (funded by University of Huddersfield)

Recently completed projects:

• Empowering girls and young women through Project 1325 (funded by WomenCentre/ Big Lottery fund)
• Partispace: Spaces and styles of participation. Formal, non-formal and informal possibilities of young people’s participation in European cities, funded by the European Commission, Horizon 2020 fund

Gráinne is the Research Lead for RAPAR, a human rights organisation based in Manchester, UK, working with displaced people, Co-Convenor of the British Sociological Association's Gender and Feminism Study Group, and on twitter: @grainnemcmahon.

• Young people’s social, political and civic participation
• Young women’s feminism and feminist activism
• Feminist and human rights activism and social movements
• Women, girls and feminism  

Click Here to see all postgraduate research opportunities with Dr Grainne McMahon

Young people’s social, political and civic participation
Young women’s feminism and feminist activism
Feminist and human rights activism and social movements
Women, girls and feminism