Successful applicants to a call by the Institute of Technology Carlow and Waterford Institute of Technology for cross institutional projects, were awarded funding this week, following an external assessment process. This joint initiative sought ideas to engage staff and other regional partners to work together to build capacity, relationships and alliances supporting the development of the Technological University for the South East and it attracted huge interest from Carlow, Waterford and Wexford campuses.
Projects involve teams from both organisations who will work together in areas such as equality, diversity and inclusion, promoting access to higher education in the region, international mobility, support for adult learners, socio-economically challenged students and other target populations. Network building projects amongst science, health, engineering, design, business and humanities academic and research staff, human resource staff, student support personnel, academic managers and finance departments also feature as do a number of projects to promote higher education connecting with industry and community groups across the South East. Other projects will take a regional approach to teaching, learning and assessment, programme alignment and examining ways for higher education to contribute to sustainable development in the region.
Speaking after the awarding of funding to the project ‘South East Research Sparks – Igniting Collaboration’, joint lead Ms. Sarah O’Brien from the Research & Commercialisation Support Centre at the Institute of Technology Carlow said ‘Preparing the application to the TUSE project fund facilitated really positive interaction and communication with my counterparts in Waterford, Dr. Aisling O’Neill and Dr. David Scanlon, and I look forward to the opportunity of working with them. I firmly believe that this collaboration will provide a unique platform for research and industry support groups from both Institutes to share their expertise, while also providing excellent networking and collaborative opportunities not only within and between the Institutes, but also with the prospect of extending these opportunities to the benefit of the wider South East region’.
The academic heads of department, and joint leads of another project being supported by the funding call entitled ‘Leadership from the Middle’, Mr Martin Meagher in Carlow and Mr. Ger Long in Waterford said ‘We are delighted with the opportunity that the cross institutional collaborative funding call has given us to engage with our colleagues at Head of Department level. It will allow us to become more familiar with the academic management and other systems in each Institute, share best practice, and actively review how we work and how we can work together as a Technological University’
Further information is available through info@tuse.ie