William Beausang
We are honoured to welcome William Beausang, Assistant Secretary General of the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (DFHERIS)’ Research and Innovation Policy, EU and International Division, to the National Open Research Festival (NORFest) 2025. Mr. Beausang will deliver the opening remarks on Thursday, 6 November 2025 at 10:00.
Assistant Secretary General, William Beausang, is responsible for the department’s:
- strategic policy and policy support
- tertiary sector integration
- apprenticeship and public policy
- economic policy
- skills and engagement
- further education and training policy
- funding governance
Mr. Beausang holds a Bachelor’s in Public Administration and Masters in Economic Science, both from University College Dublin and has also completed the Graduate Programme in Economics at the University of Tilburg.
Rebecca was a member of the European Commission’s Open Science Policy Platform, chairing their work on next-generation indicators and their summary advice: OSPP-REC, and was Editor of their final report. She was also a member of the US National Academies (NASEM) Committee on Advanced and Automated Workflows. She has been co-Chair of many working groups on data and peer review, including for Research Data Alliance (RDA) and ORCID, and has been a non-Executive Board Member of Open Research Central (ORC). She has worked in STM publishing for over 25 years, is an Associate of the Royal College of Music, qualified as a pharmacist, and holds a PhD in Pharmacology.