Sinéad Hewson is the founder of Unconventional Doctorates, a Dutch impact start-up whose purpose is to tackle low completion rates among doctoral candidates, particularly those from underrepresented groups, self-funded, or not working in education. The company aims to achieve this by developing a platform that provides users with on-demand services, free and premium content, study guidelines, and specialised peer-to-peer groups. By doing so, it hopes to foster a more diverse community of innovators, academics, and civic leaders. Unconventional Doctorates is part of Unconventional Innovators which focuses on the low participation rate of underrepresented groups in the innovation eco-system.

Sinead completed her PhD as a part-time student in 2021 and has lectured at Webster University, USA (Leiden), Rotterdam School of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands, and TU Dublin, Ireland.