About
Aoiffe Corcoran, PhD
(She/her, phonetic spelling eefa corkrun)
Fíor (fee-or) is the Irish word for true. Research can rarely claim to represent all that is true, nor everyone’s truth, but it can always be true to the claims it makes, and to those who seek them.
Fior Research is an independent research quality practice. I help organisations produce research they can be confident in, research that is methodologically sound, honestly evidenced, and clear enough to be credible with the people it is meant to convince.
I started Fior from a simple conviction. A great deal of research reaches donors, boards, clients, and the public with no independent check on whether it stands up to scrutiny. Often the organisations working closest to affected communities are the ones with the least resource to have it reviewed. That is where weak methodology and overstated claims do the most damage, and it is the gap Fior exists to close.
There is a distinction at the core of this work that matters more now than it used to. With increased access to AI, it has never been easier to produce research that reads well. What is still scarce, and getting scarcer, is the judgement to know whether it is any good, if the method answers the question, how well the evidence carries the claim, and whether the findings will survive real scrutiny. That judgement is what I offer, an independent expert view on if research is credible and ensuring organisations have the capacity and strategy to continue to produce the highest research quality.
About
What I bring
Judgement others act on.
I have examined doctoral theses, peer-reviewed for journals in disaster governance, political ecology, humanitarianism, and climate-compatible development, and sat on research advisory panels assessing methodology and ethics for major grants. In each, an institution relied on my verdict on whether the research was sound.
A grounding in how research and standards are built.
I hold a PhD in Human Geography from Manchester and a Postgraduate Certificate of Education. I co-authored the international standard ISO 22395, spending three years agreeing shared definitions and terminology across dozens of national delegations. I have designed, conducted, supervised, and published research, and I have helped write the standards others are measured against.
Range, and the fairness it teaches.
I have worked with partners in 51 countries across six continents, much of it alongside researchers writing in a second language and organisations whose knowledge is too often dismissed. It taught me to judge research on its merits and in its context.
About
How I got here
I have spent 23 years working at the intersection of research, education, and policy across the humanitarian, development, and disaster sectors. I have led research quality assurance across the full research portfolio of an international humanitarian advisory organisation, assessing methodological soundness, evidentiary support, and clarity across everything it published, and have worked with other organisations across the sector as a consultant.
Earlier, as a senior research manager for a global universities network, I oversaw governance and reporting for research collaborations spanning 26 universities on six continents. That work taught me how research quality holds, or fails to hold, across many institutions, standards, and reporting cultures at once, which is much of what I now help organisations put right. I also supported the career development of early career researchers by coordinating a white paper on the challenges they face, and designing professional development training delivered globally through interactive webinars in response.
Before that, I spent a decade in academia, most recently at the University of Manchester, where I designed and launched a new undergraduate degree and was responsible for teaching and learning across the department. I taught research methods across undergraduate and postgraduate cohorts and helped decide which doctoral candidates a department took on. Much of what I now offer in training and capacity strengthening was shaped there in supporting people transition into confident, capable researchers.
I am Irish and British, based in Manchester, UK, and often found near the sea, or on a horse, or immersed in a map. For me, research is storytelling. I love to travel to hear new stories told in different ways, to seek out forgotten ones in old bookshops, and to tell my own through writing and playing the harp. I care about this work because good research, done with integrity, respects both the knowledge it produces and the people who create and rely on it.
Get in touch
Start with a conversation
A short, no-obligation conversation to understand your context and what success would look like. You then receive a fixed-fee quote and an estimated turnaround time.