The Certificate and Diploma in Public Procurement and Supply Chain Excellence won the award for Excellence in Education and Training at the National Procurement Awards.
The National Procurement Awards (NPA) recognise procurement for what it is, a core component to a sound supply chain and overall business strategy. The NPA provide a platform which celebrates the most impressive and transformative procurement projects over the past 12 months and the teams who drive them.
This interfaculty programme (Science and Engineering and KBS) was co-designed and developed with our partner HBS (Health Business Services), which are the Procurement wing of the HSE.
This was spear headed by John Swords and Brendan White, both senior procurement professionals within the HBS.
It took two years to develop the modules and the team ensured that at all times the content reflected the challenging environment that the procurement staff in the public sector were faced with.
This was made more challenging in a COVID environment, where many of the students were managing essential services to support front line workers. There are 40 students currently on the Certificate programme and 25 on the Diploma programme, with similar applications for 2021, and the programme is delivered fully online.
A number of colleges and universities were competing for the award, including University College Cork and Griffith College in the short list.