Paul Hannigan, President of Letterkenny Institute of Technology, is the new Chairperson of Institutes of Technology Ireland (IOTI) for 2014.  A native of Donegal, Paul has served as President of Letterkenny Institute of Technology since 1998.

Commenting on the priorities for 2014, Mr Hannigan stated -

“I expect that 2014 will be another year of significant challenge, and opportunity, for the institutes of technology.  At national level, we have embraced the National Higher Education Strategy and we are active in the implementation of a range of measures, including the national employer and student surveys, and proposals for technological universities.  In recognising institutional ambition and autonomy, it is vital that the end result should be a high quality, coherent higher education system focused on the needs of students, the economy and wider society.

At institutional level, we are faced with a continuous increase in student demand whilst, at the same time, staffing and budgets are reducing.  It is a significant challenge to maintain and enhance quality against this backdrop.  All of the institutes have a specific statutory regional remit and their contribution to their regions is immense.  As the country emerges from recession, we are determined to continue our engagement with regional stakeholders to enhance employment creation opportunities across the country.  In this regard, the Institutes of Technology will be seeking to reinforce their roles with regard to research, innovation and enterprise.  The Institutes have a long track record of delivering highly impact-focused research to meet the needs of Ireland’s key industries, with particular expertise in engaging SMEs in innovation for the first time and in generating new innovative companies via start-up programmes and incubation activities.  To continue to make this key contribution to regional and national economic development, securing a sustainable funding base for our postgraduate provision and a better understanding of our unique value in this area from policy and funding bodies will be essential”.

Speaking of international challenges, Mr Hannigan added, “I relish the opportunity to make an active contribution to the U-Multirank project.  Like them or not, higher education ranking systems are here to stay but we need to make sure that the evaluation criteria and indicators are rational”.  In recent years, there has been a concerted effort to increase the number of international students coming to the Institutes and, speaking about the success of institutes of technology in the first call of the Brazil Science Without Borders programme, Mr Hannigan noted that the Irish universities and institutes of technology had worked together very closely on the project and this co-operation is continuing in the second Brazil call which is currently in progress.