Dr Jessica Bates is a senior lecturer in the School of Education, Ulster University (UU) where she undertakes research across education and library and information science. Her research interests relate to education and information policy, stakeholder engagement, and information access and social inclusion. She is part of the UU UNESCO Centre team that has undertaken the Future Schools project. This built on her previous Community Conversation work with local communities across Northern Ireland about education provision in their area, and with Dr Una O’Connor Bones she developed a Community Conversation Toolkit for use in this work. She recently undertook a review of prison library services in Ireland, and has been engaged in research into citizenship education and political literacy among young people in Northern Ireland. Her research has been published in key international journals in education and library and information science.