The advent of the engaged university and the growing expectations around the role a university can play in societal development and economic growth has become a theme in recent decades. In the early 1990s the interplay between knowledge, science and public policy came to the fore with people like Henry Etzkowitz theorising on the potential of relationships.
A 1996 UNESCO report identified lifelong learning as one of the 4 main functions of universities. The conference of European Ministers of Higher Education in 2001 spoke about the role of higher education in facing the challenges of competitiveness and the use of new technologies and to improve social cohesion, equal opportunities and the quality of life – this social dimension was linked closely to lifelong learning.
And of course, following the sudden economic crash in 2009 or thereabouts – the potential role of universities in re-vitalising the economy came into sharp focus.
Here in Ireland the Technological Universities Act specifically calls on Technological Universities to serve the needs of their regions. We are not and cannot be isolated centres of learning – it is very clear that we are not just ‘in’ regions – but ‘of’ our regions. Various typologies and models of university ‘engagement’ or impact have been devised in an attempt to identify the best ways of capturing the relationship between the ‘engaged university’ and its regional environment.
Here in MTU we have worked to develop a deeper and broader understanding of what our engagement activity as a whole looks like, what it means for students, staff and researchers – what it means for external organisations and for society.
The work has led to a codification of engagement interactions and the development of a mechanism to explore and visualise what is actually happening at the interface between academia and external partners. Over more than a decade of tracking actual and potential interactions arising from conversations and meetings we explored and named each of the different interactions that happen across the university/enterprise barrier.
This has resulted in what we consider to be three pillars of engagement.
These activities encompass relatively simple interactions like an expert lecture or a student work experience opportunity through to more involved activities such as the development of a customised course in response to a particular upskilling need within an industry sector or a joint application for a funded research collaboration.
Codifying the interactions in this way has been useful for us to track categorise and report on what is happening and with whom. We have used this codification to develop ‘how to’ guides to support educators in their engagement activities. By supporting interactions and exploring what makes them succeed we can share good practice across the university.
Providing a vocabulary, a repository for good practice, and a support structure has benefitted the educators, the students and the external partners. We know that the workplaces of tomorrow will be very different from those of today and we need to prepare our graduates for a future that we cannot easily foresee – our best chance of achieving this is close collaboration with employers and enterprises.
Author: Irene Sheridan