23 November, 2021

It is hard to believe that it has been ten years, but it is a nice moment to reflect on what we have achieved and learned over that time.

We started with a few dearly held principles and some ambitious targets. Working with enterprise, supporting companies and organsations in accessing and developing talent, and working together to solve emerging challenges through research has always been central to Cork RTC, CIT and now MTU. What the Extended Campus was to achieve was to internally connect all those different interactions, allowing us to offer a broad impactful menu of external partnering opportunities.

We recognise that successful interactions are ultimately between people, and we help external partners to explore how they can engage with the University, connecting them to the appropriate staff, students and researchers. Our Customer Relationship Management system supports this approach by developing leads and queries and turning them into active engagements.

We firmly believe that the workplace acts as a valid and valuable centre for learning and our excellence in developing recognition processes for prior learning and integration of work-based learning into the curriculum became a key part of our relationships with employers and learners alike.

We understand the need to support organisational learning within the university, and we see each positive interaction as an opportunity for the University to learn, and to develop good practice in engagement through case studies and practice guides. We consciously link our work to international best practice in engagement through conferences, projects and organisations. 

The Extended Campus ensures that MTU does not just reach out to external organisations but actively invites them in, in a deliberate way, to access and contribute to knowledge and talent, to support the development of students and to influence the curriculum. MTU works with our enterprise partners to stimulate both local and regional prosperity, and sustainable economic and social development.

We cannot but be enthused by the Technological Universities Act which gives prominence to engagement interactions and meaningful partnerships, and we look forward to another ten years of contributing and learning!

If you feel your organisation could benefit from a collaboration with MTU students, lecturers or researchers email the Extended Campus at extended.campusCork@mtu.ie to explore your options.

Check out our database of case studies, illustrating previous important industry partnerships by clicking here.

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