• What is meant by the term ‘engagement’?
• What does an engaged higher education institution look like?...from the outside?
• Can we… should we… move engagement from the periphery to the core?
• How can we structure our institutions… collect and use business intelligence?

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Universities as ‘engines of the knowledge economy’ (Vorley and Nelles
2008)
OECD ..’regional engagement …create the conditions in which innovation thrives’
European Commission…
 R&D collaboration and commercialisation
 Mobility of academics and students
 Curriculum development and delivery
 Lifelong learning
 Entrepreneurship
 Governance
Knowledge transfer – exchange – co-creation

 National
 Economic and social value – employment, skills needs, enterprise development, cultural interactions
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Institutional
 Academic – relevancy and currency of learning
 Knowledge creation and application
 Diversity of missions
National Strategy for Higher Education to 2030 calls for:
..higher education institutions to ‘engage with the communities they serve in a more connected manner—identifying community, regional and enterprise needs and proactively responding to them’

Enhancement of employability
skills
Career fairs and company visits
Course design and delivery
Professional
External examiners
Bodies
Workplacement
Volunteering
Customised
Learning
CPD
Placement and projects
Work-based learning
Service Learning
RPL
Guest lectureships
Alumni Relations
Supporting
Entrepreneurship
Spin-outs and spin-ins
Innovation
Partnerships
Strategic
Partnerships and Research
Solutions Patents and licences
Applied research
Commercialisation
Long-term relationship planning

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Education in Employment project – workplace as a valuable learning location and the employer as a partner
REAP – development of partnership continuum and exploration of good practice models for engagement interactions
Relationships, resources and realistic expectations

Engagement has to be an institution wide commitment, not confined to individual academics or projects.
It has to embrace teaching as well as research, students as well as academics, and the full range of support services.
All universities need to develop strategies to guide their engagement with wider society, to manage themselves accordingly and to work with external partners to gauge their success
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 Goddard, J. (2009) Reinventing the Civic University,
8

 Key elements
 Stimulus to generate the ‘pull’
 Exemplars of activity
 Point of contact
 Informed view of capabilities, experience and expertise
 Guidelines for good practice
 Professional approach to case management

 Collate expertise and experience from our separate
(competing?) units
 Develop an informed, strategic view of past, present and future engagement interactions
 Articulate clearly what makes engagement work (for both partners)
▪ Structures
▪ Expectations,
▪ Timeframes
▪ Cultures
▪ Climate…

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 Quantify: Connections made – leads generated – interactions progressed
Relationship mapping and progression:
Work placement
Customised learning
Research
Social and economic value generation?

Dr Irene Sheridan www.reap.ie
www.cit.ie/extendedcampus