12 June, 2017

The University-Industry Interaction Conference is the annual conference of the University Industry Innovation Network (UIIN), through which UIIN brings together over 400 managers, practitioners and researchers in the field of entrepreneurial universities, collaborative innovation and university-industry interaction. Now in its 5th year, this conference is one of the largest conferences in this field and provides its participants with 3 days of sharing knowledge and interacting with peers. In order to best facilitate this, the conference is built around a number of key principles:

1. A mixture of science and practice - It fostered both the research ON, as well as practical experience IN university-industry interaction. Through this mixture of sharing research results on how to interact and, at the same time sharing experiences on these interactions our attendees are best equipped to further drive the interaction between university and industry.

2. Experience the local culture and knowledge facilities - The conference enables participants to get to know the local culture and environment and learn from local good practice examples.

3. Insights into the minds of renowned leaders - Keynote speakers at UIIN events represent both the academic as well as the industry perspective, with past speakers being amongst others best-selling book authors, leaders of entrepreneurship centres, scientific experts as well as managers from SIEMENS, Volkswagen, Konica Minolta.

4. Get to work through hands-on workshops - It is perceived to be crucial for the participants to engage in practical workshops to, amongst others, reflect on their own understanding of the collaboration between university and industry, but also to interact and network with peers.

5. Expanding networks and knowledge base - There is a belief in building long lasting relationships and sharing knowledge beyond the actual conferendce days. The offer of the 'UIIN Connect', to meet and interact before, during and after the conference with those having shared interests and goals. It is through this same tool that you can access the papers, presentations and other materials of one of the 100 speakers from the event.

Dr Rose Leahy spoke of the importance to track learning outcomes from higher education and industry links. Mr Daithi Fallon of CIT Extended Campus delivering a presentation of the collaboration of SR Technic and CIT at the UIIN Conference at the Aviva Stadium last week in Dublin.

With over 60 different countries present at the conference, it was significant to exhibit positive collaboration between 3rd level education & industry.