Dr. Patrick Prendergast:

I thank the Cathaoirleach and members of the committee for the opportunity to appear today. I am doing so as chairperson of the governing body noting that my role is to speak for it, and it is the role of the president, Professor Veronica Campbell, to speak on behalf of the university.

South East Technological University, SETU, is the first university created in the south-east of Ireland. It was established on 1 May this year. We held a celebration for staff and students, which was attended by the Minister, Deputy Harris, and many of our public representatives, including the committee Chairman, Deputy Kehoe, and Senator Malcolm Byrne. It was called a momentous day, a groundbreaking day, and an historic day for the south east. SETU must be a success. Failure to deliver for the south east in a timely manner, when the expectations are so high, is not an option.

All universities have a mission in education and research. Education and research must be developed together in parallel, as both leverage their success off each other. To do this in SETU we will: scale up the quality of our courses and increase the number of programmes co-created with regional partners and industry, incorporating novel admissions pathways; and deepen our impact on regional society and the economy through increased high-quality research, innovation and entrepreneurship activity. At the moment, 30% of SETU courses are co-created with partners. In traditional universities, almost no courses are co-created with partners in this way. This is a massive differentiator for the technological universities.

Regarding research and innovation, there are 26,000 businesses in the south east. For many of them SETU will be their anchor institution. SETU will create opportunities for them to innovate new products and services and to grow. How will we do this? An important starting point for us is the south-east regional enterprise action plan. It sets out a role for the technological universities as key enablers of regional economic development through clustering and building economic critical mass in key industries. The plan states “there will be an opportunity for clusters to inform research and education priorities in the TU and for the TU ... to guide the future development of the cluster, inform on future skills needs, and identify a range of industry development opportunities". There will be linkages between the technological university and regional industry, quite unlike what exists in traditional universities.

In the case of SETU, the specialisms are: advanced manufacturing; financial services; ICT; pharmaceuticals; and sustainable agriculture. Some 95% of the enterprise base in the south-east is comprised of small and medium-sized enterprise, SMEs. They have limited research and innovation capacity. SETU is expected to perform a lead role, along with local enterprise offices, LEOs, and other agencies, in supporting these 26,000 SMEs in particular.

Physical proximity is important for innovation. I make this point because SETU has campuses distributed throughout the south east, giving it the perfect platform to support innovation. SETU currently supports 65 companies in incubation and innovation centres in Waterford, Kilkenny and Carlow. There are also many incubators in regional towns in the south east, including the Hatch Lab in Gorey and the one in Enniscorthy. It is our aim to link in with these.

SETU is proud to have four technology gateways, namely, design+, in applied design; SEAM, in advanced manufacturing; PMBRC, in pharmaceutical and healthcare; and the Walton institute, in mobile services. These technology gateways must continue to be funded. They have been the primary vehicles for industry-academia collaboration in support of enterprise development.

Each gateway is underpinned by a strong research base. In order to make them credible and sustainable in respect of knowledge generation, there needs to be funding in support of capacity building and enhancement within research centres in order for the gateways to function. There also needs to be a programme of capital investment in buildings to promote research and innovation. In SETU, the technology gateways and research centres will be used to advance a comprehensive engagement strategy across research, education and innovation. We will also support research that leads to entrepreneurial ventures because student entrepreneurship is about not just teaching our students to get jobs but also teaching them how to create jobs.

For staff, contracts and workload models that support research and the creation of entrepreneurial ventures will be important. TUs must be innovators in this domain. This would make a significant contribution to driving forward regional innovation ecosystems.

As for research and innovation, what is needed is funding to support capacity building and enhanced infrastructure to international standards that will in turn enhance the capability of TUs to attract and to retain international talent and make a significant impact. Specifically, we suggest it would be appropriate to create a TU-only fund in support of research capacity building and capital investment. Let us call it a programme for investment in technological universities.