ProfessorJonathan Drennan

Professor Drennan has completed a number of projects at national and European levels and has received competitive funding from a wide variety of sources including: the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the Irish Research Council for Humanities and the Social Sciences, the European Science Foundation, Atlantic Philanthropies, the Cochrane Collaboration, the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland, the Health Research Board, the Irish Cancer Society, the Health Service Executive, and the European Union Horizon 2020 research programme.

Professor Drennan has undertaken research in Ireland and the UK on nurse and midwife prescribing, cancer information services, research priorities for nursing and midwifery, safe nurse staffing and advanced practice. He presented to and advised the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) Safe Staffing Advisory Committees on staffing in medical and surgical wards and accident and emergency departments in the UK. This was part of the development process of the NICE guidelines on safe staffing.

His research has impacted and informed health policy, not least in the development of expanded and advanced roles for nurses and midwives (medicinal prescribing and prescribing of ionising radiation), the safeguarding of older people and the development of frameworks for safe nurse staffing and skill-mix in a number of health care settings.


Professor Drennan is currently a member of the Department of Health taskforce involved in the development of guidelines for safe nurse staffing and skill mix in the healthcare sector. He is currently leading a Health Research Board and Department of Health funded study on safe staffing in medical, surgical, emergency and older person’s settings in Ireland. Professor Drennan is also part of a European and US research team that have been awarded a grant from the EU Horizon 2020 research programme. The title of the research, Magnet4Europe, develops and implements a theory-based organisational redesign in 64 hospitals in 6 European countries and involves one-to-one twinning between hospitals in Europe and hospitals in the US with the aim of improving the health and wellbeing of healthcare staff and enhancing the working environment.

Professor Drennan was also appointed to the Expert Review Body on Nursing and Midwifery by the Minister of Health, Stephen Donnelly and is one of the authors of the Report that was launched in January 2022.