University of Limerick has won the award for Best Erasmus Programme for the third year in a row and Best Student Campus in Ireland for the second year in a row.
The University took home the prizes at the 2020 Irish Education Awards, which took place recently in the Ballsbridge Hotel, Dublin. The Education Awards, recognise, encourage and celebrate excellence among third level education providers across the island of Ireland.
In all, UL was shortlisted in six categories, with nominations for Best Marketing and Communications Team, Student Engagement and Education Award for the Glucksman Library, Best Business and third level institute collaboration for the project AI in the Delivery of Legal Services Partners and School of Law, UL and Best Research Project, Ocuco-Lero Global Lean Agile Project - Lero, the SFI Research Centre for Software at UL.
It is the second year in a row that UL’s stunning 367-acre campus has won the award, a recognition of the unrivalled facilities on offer to the more than 16,000 students attending the University.
“UL offers unrivalled facilities to ensure that students have every opportunity to excel, meet friends, stay healthy and are academically challenged,” said UL President Dr Des Fitzgerald.
“What makes UL facilities stand out the most is that quite a significant number are pretty much unique in the Irish context and we promote every opportunity for our students to have a healthy college experience.
“A University of ‘Firsts’, UL prides itself on being ahead of many of Ireland’s third level institutions in securing unique education and training facilities for all students. The University offers a hands-on approach to learning which is later complimented by UL’s award winning Cooperative Education programme.
“This has guaranteed our employment rate as being higher than the HEA national average figure for 10 consecutive years. Our students can work closely with industry as our facilities match the quality needed to excel industry forward,” he added.
Josephine Page, director of IED, said her team was “delighted” to have received the award for Best Erasmus Programme at the Irish Education Awards for the third consecutive year - 2018, 2019 and 2020.
The academic study placement abroad forms an integral and mandatory part of seven degree programmes at UL while further degree programmes offer a voluntary academic placement.
“Tangible evidence of the University’s commitment to internationalisation and development across campus is the continuing growth of mobilities,” explained Josephine.
“The key performance indicators include a year on year increase in the number of outgoing students, the last academic year increasing by 21%. This is balanced by a 14% increase in the current number of students enrolling on our incoming Erasmus programme at nearly 600 students.
“The Erasmus programme in its entirety and the inter-faculty partnerships that it generates ensure the visibility of UL at European and International levels while also contributing to our key strategic objective of enhancing the reputation of UL worldwide,” she added.