Skills for a Sustainable and Resilient Future: Insights from Enterprise Leaders
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Last week, the Enterprise Academy at Technological University Dublin (TU Dublin) hosted Leo Varadkar, Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, and a panel of enterprise leaders for the Convene Enterprise Forum to discuss the skills needed to grow and sustain the talent pipeline across key sectors of the Irish economy, and the role higher education can play. The Convene Enterprise Forum is a joint event series between the TU Dublin Enterprise Academy and the UCD Innovation Academy, as part of the Human Capital Initiative-funded project, Convene.
“The topic of today’s Convene Enterprise Forum – Skills for a Sustainable and Resilient Future – is very timely. The future economy for our graduates will be very different, and universities must evolve to prepare students who choose to take this route to be agile and adaptable.
Convene recognizes that higher education institutes cannot work in isolation. It sits at the nexus of enterprise and higher education, bringing together diverse voices from academia and business, along with other actors from politics, civil society, the media and elsewhere. Minister Harris and I are working to encourage this kind of collaboration all the time.
I urge Convene to continue pushing boundaries, challenging our thinking, and transforming how higher education and enterprise work together.”
The panel included Simon McKeever from the Irish Exporters Association, Lorna Martyn from Fidelity Investments, Peter Cosgrove from Futurewise and Teresa McGrane from Screen Ireland. More than 150 attendees from enterprise and academia joined the event, hosted in TU Dublin’s East Quad building on the Grangegorman campus.
“Developing skills for sustainability and resilience requires an ecosystem that combines industry and educational knowledge and provides flexible, accessible pathways for learners at all levels. Our recently launched Enterprise Academy is a very significant output of the Convene project and will continue to enhance our agility in response to future skills needs.”
In a wide ranging discussion, moderated by Eileen Dunne of RTÉ, the panel addressed:
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The value of collaboration between enterprise and higher education in developing an ecosystem of co-learning and instilling a mindset of lifelong learning;
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The need for creative, alternative pathways that support employees over the course of their careers and develop transversal as well as technical skills;
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The importance of embracing diversity of thought and experience – such as expanding STEM to STEAM – and being interested in how people learn in order to unlock their full potential;
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The value of government funding in structuring and building a skills and talent base that contributes to Ireland’s global growth and builds resilience for Irish enterprise in areas such as the creative and cultural sector and international trade;
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The need to continue to push the skills and collaboration agenda between academia and enterprise – with a specific focus on supporting SMEs – to create an environment where people feel welcome and included with an opportunity to contribute and learn, including addressing critical issues such as housing.
When asked where they’d like to see things going by the end of the decade, the panellists highlighted: the need for increased collaboration; designing for inclusion and a focus on equity in order to get to equality; a balance between remote and in-person working that builds transversal skills; and continued government support – specifically creative and meaningful ways to unlock the National Training Fund surplus and create more pathways for people to contribute to the workforce and continue to grow and evolve over the course of their careers.
“At the UCD Innovation Academy we tell our students that learning how to learn and learning how to work together are two of the most important skills that they’re going to need in the future. Our hope is that through Convene, we exemplify these skills. As a collaboration between the two largest universities in Ireland, we have a tremendous engine to affect change at scale.”
A full recording of the panel discussion is available here.