WeAreTUDublin Lunchtime Events

The importance of TU Dublin differentiating itself in the competitive higher education landscape is well understood across the University. Staff consistently suggested that TU Dublin’s strongest differentiators lie in our practice-based learning and our depth of employer engagement. Additionally, our supportive staff-student and student-student engagements, through which our staff get to know their students and our students learn together in small groups highlights how relationships are central to the student experience in TU Dublin and differentiate us a university. Together, these attributes enable our students to receive a distinctive learning experience in TU Dublin. Research among potential students confirms this positioning to be motivating and differentiated.

Building upon a workshop that was held in May 2025, TU Dublin will hold a series of lunchtime events with staff in the week of 6 October to explore and celebrate these three strongly differentiating factors and to develop further the conversation among staff about the distinctiveness of the student experience in TU Dublin.

The events are being organised at the request of the President on TU Dublin, Dr Deirdre Lillis.

Objectives

The objectives for the events are to:

1. Celebrate our distinctiveness and strengths as Dublin’s only, and Ireland’s first and largest Technological University.
2. Share exemplars of practice-based education, employer engagement and supportive relationships from across the University to highlight excellent practice and to stimulate innovation.
3. Explore deeply the distinctiveness of TU Dublin’s approaches to practice-based education, employer engagement and supportive relationships.
4. Identify opportunities to enhance and further embed practice-based education, employer engagement and supportive relationships in the activities of TU Dublin. These opportunities can then be considered through the development of university strategies such as the University Education Strategy.
5. Enable staff to suggest content for an elevator pitch that captures our strengths and distinctiveness, and that can assist with the development of a shared understanding among the University community and the public of who we are as a university.

Dates and Venues

The events are taking place as follows:

• Monday, 6 October, 12-2pm, Grangegorman (CQ-009), to be opened by TU Dublin President, Dr Deirdre Lillis
• Tuesday, 7 October, 12-2pm, Tallaght (TMAIN029), to be opened by TU Dublin President, Dr Deirdre Lillis
• Wednesday, 8 October, 12-2pm, Aungier St (AU5-050), to be opened by TU Dublin President, Dr Deirdre Lillis
• Thursday, 9 October, 12-2pm, Blanchardstown (AG-003), to be opened by Dr Dominic Dillane
• Friday, 10 October, 1-3pm, Bolton St (BST281), to be opened by Dr Dominic Dillane

Registration

All TU Dublin staff are invited to register for, and attend one of these events. Attendance in-person is preferred, but attendance online is also possible. If it is only possible to attend one of the two hours of the event (e.g. due to teaching timetable), please feel free to do so.

Please register to attend in advance of the events using the WeAreTUDublin Registration Form.

Format for Events

Lunch will be provided at all events. The events will include opening presentations, roundtable discussions and a panel session. The details are as follows (note that this assumes as a 12pm start, the Friday event commences at 1pm):

• 12:00 to 12:10pm: Welcome
• 12:10 to 12:20pm: Opening Speech by President (to be delivered by Chief Recovery Officer on Thursday and Friday)
• 12:20 to 12:30pm: Presentation by Learning, Teaching and Assessment team, exploring the three identified areas of differentiation and how they relate to the development of the University Education Strategy.
• 12:30 to 12:40pm: Presentation by Communications and Marketing, exploring the three identified areas of differentiation and how they relate to University's communications strategy.
• 12:40 to 1:20pm: Lunch and discussions in breakout groups (with separate facilitated online discussion), at which attendees will work in groups to develop and share insight into our distinctiveness and differentiation, and identify actions needed to embed practice-based education, employer engagement and supportive relationships further in our activities as individuals, as programmes and as a university. See the Two-Page Discussion Document for Breakout Groups.
• 1:20 to 1:50pm: Facilitated panel discussion with: two TU Dublin staff, one TU Dublin student representative, and an employer of TU Dublin graduates.
• 1:50pm: Conclusion

Panellists

Each lunchtime event will include a panel session with staff, student and employer representatives. The panel members for each day are provided below. Further details will be added in due course.

Resources

• Report with Exemplars: Differentiating TU Dublin through Practice-Based Learning and Employer Engagement, June 2025 (Updated September 2025 with additional exemplars)
• TU Dublin Graduate Attributes
• Employability LibGuides, TU Dublin Library
• TU Dublin University Education Model Implementation (internal access only), and related graduate attributes card deck and overview.
• TU Dublin Career Development Centre and Upcoming Career Fairs
• TU Dublin Values
• Thrive Framework: Effective Communication
• Sustainability Action Lab and Sustainability Impact Stories
• Enterprise Engagement Framework (internal access only)

Additional resources will be added in advance of the events, and as a follow up from the events.