The IUA was awarded funding through the first round of the HEA’s Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) to advance key projects across the university sector. Nine IUA projects, totalling €3.45 million were funded, in three main themes – Creating a World Class 4th Level Ireland, Reform and Innovation at 3rd Level and Enabling Initiatives. These projects are aligned with corresponding sections of the IUA Strategy as set out in the pre-Budget submission to Government “Reform of 3rd Level and Creation of 4th Level Ireland, November 2005”.
The IUA is establishing links with CoDIT on similar projects being rolled out in the IoT sector and a High Level Group is being established between the two sectors to examine strategic issues associated with SIF.
The nine IUA projects, grouped under thematic heading, are:
Creating a World-Class 4th Level Ireland
1. 4th Level Support Network
This four year project will create a new sectoral expert network supporting graduate education, engaging stakeholders, informing and analysing pertinent aspects of graduate schools and programmes
2. Attracting International Graduate Students
The aim of this three year project will be to establish the “Irish PhD brand” internationally and target a specific exemplar market (China), resulting in academic placements for selected Chinese PhD students in Irish universities.
3. PhD Quality Assurance
This project will establish a PhD Quality Assurance Programme and Quality Mark at 4th level in the universities. The Irish Universities Quality Board (IUQB) will manage this project and work with the universities on their approach to organisation, management and support of PhD programmes.
4. Open Access to Research Output
The purpose of this three year project is to create institutional digital repositories of publications and a single national repository to make Irish research output freely available internationally. The project is being managed by the IUA Librarians Group.
Reform and Innovation at 3rd Level
5. Widening the Base for High Quality Student Recruitment
This project will build on best practice to support national and institutional policies regarding enhanced participation of non-traditional students in higher education.
Enabling Initiatives
6. Towards a Full Economic Cost Model
The objective of this two year project is to scope a university Full Economic Costing (FEC) model and to assess the feasibility of applying the model across the sector.
7. Strategic Planning and Decision Support
The purpose of this one year project is to agree a common set of data definitions and key performance indicators to provide university management with comprehensive and integrated information for decision support, strategy development and external benchmarking.
8. Student Feedback System
This project, managed by the Geary Institute, UCD, will develop a web-based survey system, targeting the 3rd and 4th level population in Ireland. It will provide information to those developing and implementing education policy in the universities, enabling them to respond to student needs and concerns.
9. Towards a HE Leadership Academy
This two year project aims to evaluate the potential of establishing a national collaborative leadership programme in the universities. The project will develop a sectoral leadership training framework, design programmes in areas of “organisational, people and personal leadership”, pilot their delivery and evaluate their success.
For information on any of the IUA SIF projects, contact: Siobhan Harkin, SIF Project Manager, Irish Universities Association; email: siobhan.harkin@iua.ie