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€250,000 to be invested to support provision of summer camps across the country

Minister for Education and Skills, Richard Bruton TD, today (Thursday 2nd March) announced a call for higher education institutions to submit proposals for entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation summer camps in 2017. The Higher Education Authority (HEA) will write to higher education institutions to seek proposals.

Making the announcement, Minister Bruton said:

“We want to give students access to Higher Education spaces that stimulate creativity, innovation and invention and provide activities that stimulate entrepreneurial thinking and design skills among students. We are seeking innovative proposals that might include “makerspace” and “fab lab” type spaces which facilitate inquiry-based, collaborative learning through hands-on activities such as designing new services and building new products which require skills across different disciplines.

“A goal of the Action Plan for Education is to build stronger bridges between education and the wider community and to ensure that entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation are nurtured by the education and training system. This will help sustain our economic recovery and help to adapt our national skills base to meet the challenges of growth in the modern world.

“Ireland is a nation of great entrepreneurs –we just don’t have enough of them. As Jobs Minister, I set out to ensure we created the right conditions to support greater numbers of entrepreneurs and the creation of new businesses in Ireland through the publication and implementation of the first Policy Statement on Entrepreneurship.

“In the Action Plan for Jobs, we set out our ambition for Ireland to be among the most entrepreneurial nations in the world and acknowledged as a world‐class environment in which to start and grow a business. Our continued success is reflected in the fact that Ireland has moved from 8th to 6th place in 2016 in the European Innovation Scoreboard.

“Now as Education Minister I have continued that work by developing a greater focus on entrepreneurship in the education and training system. Today, I am pleased to announce the call for the provision of entrepreneurship summer camps. I have ring-fenced €250,000 in Budget 2017 to support the rollout of this new initiative this year.

"The HEA is notifying the higher education institutions and the closing date for receipt of proposals is 29 March 2017. I'm expecting to see innovative proposals from the institutions and I look forward to seeing students participating in this initiative in the coming months.”