University of Limerick has been awarded funding from the Higher Education Authority to deliver initiatives around entrepreneurship education.
The funding is being allocated between two separate initiatives – Entrepreneurship Education Initiatives and Student Entrepreneurship Programmes.
A collaboration between UL’s Nexus Innovation Centre and the Kemmy Business School has been awarded €125k in the HEA call for Entrepreneurship Education Initiatives.
The funding will be used to deliver a suite of interconnected entrepreneurship programmes targeted at UL researchers.
The three planned initiatives will build on the recent UL pilot programme ‘From Research to Spin Out – The Role of Entrepreneurial and Innovative Thinking’ with the aim to continue to develop and nurture the creative, entrepreneurial and innovative talent across UL’s research community and to provide dedicated supports to female academics interested in commercialisation.
The first programme, ‘Connecting and Enabling Female Entrepreneurial Ambition in STEAM Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths’ is an awareness creation entrepreneurship programme tailored to female researchers in the various research centres to address the female gap across STEAM and EntreSTEAM.
The second programme is an enhanced version of the pilot ‘From Research to Spin Out – The Role of Entrepreneurial and Innovative Thinking’. This will be an introductory programme to entrepreneurship for researchers interested in becoming more entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial in their approach to research and to introduce them to the idea of commercialisation.
The third programme is a more comprehensive programme titled From Research to Spin out -Validating and Creating the Business Case for Research Commercialisation. This programme aims to support a diverse audience of researchers who are at an advanced stage of developing their research commercialisation and have the potential to develop funding proposals, PhD and post doc students and researchers working in the National Science Foundation of Ireland Research Centres and Research Institutes such as LERO, BERNAL and Confirm.
All three programmes are interconnected and generates more familiarity and understanding of the narratives of entrepreneurship and innovation applicable to all stages of the commercialisation journey.
Nexus and KBS representing UL are also partners on the Student Inc. programme which was awarded €230k by the HEA as part of the funding call for Student Entrepreneurship Programmes.
The programme supports students in the development and scaling of their business ideas over the summer period. A funding stipend, training and mentoring and access to on campus incubators are provided as part of this programme.
Other partners include Munster Technological University, Technological University Shannon, Atlantic Technological University, University College Cork, Mary Immaculate College and their on-campus Innovation Centres.
Speaking about the funding announcement, Gert O’Rourke, Nexus Centre Manager, said: “We are delighted to collaborate with Kemmy Business School in the design and delivery of entrepreneurship programmes to support our researchers and students.
“I am impressed with the high level of interest and calibre of researchers commercialising their research and students interested in scaling their business ideas. Our UL spinouts and Nexus members provide a valuable input into these programmes providing real-life honest insight into starting a business showcasing the good, bad and ugly aspects of start-up.”
Dr Briga Hynes added that this funding “enables further expansion of entrepreneurship and innovation initiatives across disciplines and responds to the growing demand for targeted entrepreneurial knowledge and skills training for the commercialisation research.
“The collaboration will see the development of a novel first time programme particularly focused on increasing female participation and start up activity across STEAM disciplines,” Dr Hynes added.