He is also Director of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence in the New Political Economy of Europe at UCD's Dublin European Institute (DEI), and Director of Graduate Master Studies at the School of Politics. Prior to UCD, Aidan was a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Germany (MPIfG), and a Max Weber postdoctoral fellow at the European University Institute (EUI) in Italy. Aidan completed his PhD in Public Policy at the College of Social Science at UCD, whilst also working at the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS), at the University of Amsterdam.