The Enterprise Academy Fellowship programme supports staff wishing to co-create skills and innovation solutions with enterprise, which are aligned to TU Dublin’s strategic goals. Funded by the Human Capital Initiative, Enterprise Fellows are seconded from their regular role on a full-time basis for one semester. Staff in academic faculties, professional services, research or innovation centres are eligible to apply.
To date, the Enterprise Academy has awarded 14 Fellowships across a variety of projects and sectors and is currently accepting Expression of Interest for Semester 1 of the 2024/25 academic year. See how to apply below.
About the Fellowship Programme
The Enterprise Academy Fellowship programme is a unique and exciting opportunity for staff at TU Dublin. Seconded from their regular roles, Fellows are given the time, space, and resources to work on a wide range of projects aligned with TU Dublin’s strategic plan, and building on existing strengths across the university to support the Enterprise Academy’s mission to transform university-enterprise engagement for the benefit of Irish society and the economy. This semester we welcomed our third class of Enterprise Fellows: Katriona Flynn, Dr. Róisín Vize, John Jones, Hugh McCabe and Dr. Claire Brougham.
The Enterprise Academy Fellowship provides time out to pause intense schedules, explore, experiment and deliver skills and innovation solutions for enterprise. Fellows will be immersed in a ‘velcro’ ecosystem where staff and students from enterprise, academia, professional services, innovation, research and our international partners come together for the common purpose of innovation, talent and skills development.
Fellows will be based in their host organisation and in the Enterprise Academy, an “internal incubator” for TU Dublin, which will help staff translate between enterprise needs and academic solutions, align projects to the university strategic plan, navigate our complex systems, integrate our collective expertise and co-create solutions around priority enterprise needs.
Leveraging the best practice of prior fellowship colleagues, Fellows are supported throughout the innovation lifecycle to deliver skills and innovation solutions for enterprise. Mainstreaming and delivery remains the responsibility of the home Faculty, School or Unit and all projects need the firm commitment of the relevant line manager from the outset.
The Enterprise Academy offers:
- Full semester secondments with backfill to the home School/unit (to a maximum value of €25,000)
- Ground-breaking educational models for Accredited Talent Development
- Tools and techniques for effective discovery
- Coaching through the full innovation lifecycle, from ideation to mainstreaming
- Curation of high-quality online content to support skills solutions
- Assistance with securing funding (Springboard, Innovation Vouchers, and other funding applications)
- Navigation of internal and collaborative quality assurance processes
- Cultivation of enterprise ecosystems including Enterprise Faculty in priority sectors
- Communities of practice around common challenges, joining the dots across our education, research and innovation strengths
- Professional development plans including coaching and training as entrepreneurial educators
- National/international market development and sector-facing intelligence
- Championing business process transformation within TU Dublin for university-enterprise engagement.
The Enterprise Academy Fellowship programme supports Technological University Dublin staff wishing to co-create skills and innovation solutions with enterprise, which are aligned to TU Dublin’s strategic goals. Funded by the Human Capital Initiative, Enterprise Fellows will be seconded from their regular role on a full-time basis for one semester. Staff in academic faculties, professional services, research or innovation centres are eligible to apply.
The current Call for Expressions of Interest is for Semester 1 of the 2024/25 academic year. The roles will be full-time assignments for up to 4 months (from mid-September to mid-January ‘25). Up to 5 Full Time Equivalent Fellowships will be funded. A panel will be put in place from which vacancies may be filled over a 12-month period. The secondment will be at the current pay grade of the successful candidates.
The Enterprise Academy welcome ideas from staff under the broad theme of co-creation of skills and innovation solutions with enterprise within some key parameters.
- All Fellowships must have clear and achievable deliverables which are aligned to relevant objectives of the faculty or unit and the TU Dublin strategic plan. Priority will be given to Fellowships that can be completed within the semester time frame and which are building on a relevant track record (e.g., prior work in Springboard, Skillnet, or similar schemes)
- A key goal of the Enterprise Academy is to ‘join the dots’ across our academic, professional services, research and innovation communities. We want to make good ideas bigger and more impactful by convening university-enterprise ecosystems around them and with our partners in the UCD Innovation Academy. In this initial Call, priority will be given to Fellowships that demonstrate this ambition.
- The Enterprise Academy is supported by an investment of €17.5m from the Human Capital Initiative, in partnership with the UCD Innovation Academy. As such the Enterprise Academy Fellowships must assist with meeting the specific objectives and targets of the HCI Pillar 3 funding. Priority will be given to proposals that address skills and innovation needs in one/more of the following sectors (ICT/FinTech, Tourism, Food & Drink, Creative & Cultural, Social Enterprise, MedTech and Pharma, Engineering, Construction & the Built Environment). Fellows may be asked to progress relevant aspects of the Enterprise Academy project as part of their secondment where relevant.
See more information and download the Expression of Interest Enterprise Academy Convene Fellowships form.
