Significant work is ongoing regarding growth and development of graduate taught programmes, one of the key objectives of the UCD Strategy for Education 2009-2014. During the last academic year nine UCD Schools participated in a pilot study to review their Masters programmes with a view to detailing their current course structure and offerings and building flexible and innovative programmes and pathways from undergraduate to PhD level.

As you will have seen from the previous Registrar's Bulletin, last year's graduate enrolment planning exercise resulted in an increase in main campus graduate taught student numbers of approximately 11% for Semester 1 of 2009/10. An additional increase in student numbers on distance learning programmes contributed a further 3% to give a total 14% increase in graduate students on taught programmes compared to the same period last year. This is an extremely positive result and we would like to congratulate and extend our thanks to all those who contributed to this successful outcome.

We are now moving to provide a framework to guide the development, review, enrolment planning, internationalisation and marketing of graduate taught programmes. The Graduate School Directors have been working closely with Schools and Programmes to plan 2010 enrolments and to look at further development and refinement of the graduate taught portfolio at UCD. Speed and efficiency of the admissions process is an essential part of growth and development of graduate taught programmes and the streamlined admissions pilot, initiated last year, is now being extended to over 30 programmes, which are particularly attractive to international students.

We would like to thank, in particular, the Graduate School Directors and Deputy Directors for the significant time and effort they are currently investing in this priority activity.

The Labour Market Activation Scheme (LMAs) was a joint initiative run by the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment, the Department of Education and Science and the Higher Education Authority, offering 1000 part-time postgraduate places to unemployed graduates at NFQ levels 8-9 across the Higher Education sector.

The largest amount of postgraduate places offered to any one institution were secured by UCD, which was awarded funding for 190 places on Graduate Certificate Programmes under Call B of the scheme. This call was targeted specifically at the unemployed graduate cohort. The scheme aimed to engage unemployed graduates in nationally strategic areas of development, thus activating the labour market. The five Graduate Certificates funded included programmes representing three of the five Graduate School discipline areas:

Graduate Certificate in Entrepreneurship: Dare to Venture (70 Places)
Graduate Certificate in ICT Skills (Negotiated Learning) (70 Places)
Graduate Certificate in NanoBio Sciences (20 Places)
Graduate Certificate in Green Technologies (20 Places)
Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development (10 Places)

Under this innovative scheme, the HEA pays €2,500 towards the cost of the €2,750 course fee, with students paying the remaining €250. The programme proved extremely popular with the labour force and more than 83% of places were filled.

Establishing the LMAs in UCD required significant cross University collaboration and our thanks go to those involved in the Graduate Schools, Registry, Applied Language Centre, and IT services for their support and contribution.

The SIF Cycle 2-funded Dublin Region Higher Education Alliance (DRHEA) Graduate Education Strand, an alliance of six institutions in the Dublin area i.e. UCD, TCD, DCU, DIT, NUIM, and ITT Dublin is working to radically reposition the Dublin region as an international centre for graduate and in particular, doctoral education, by combining the strengths of the participating institutions. An Inter-Institutional Collaborative Agreement has been agreed and signed by the Registrar or their equivalent in each member institution.

DRHEA Graduate Networks have been established in the six disciplines of Biomedical Sciences, Chemistry, Economics, Engineering, Physics, Politics/Sociology/Public Policy. Discipline specific modules and master classes have been provided to doctoral students involving mobility of students across the participating institutions. A DRHEA website has been constructed and all DRHEA Graduate Education Modules and Master Classes have been input to Discipline specific web pages. DRHEA Graduate Education Disciplinary Groups have been established and are working towards joint strategic planning across cognate Departments/Schools across the alliance. The DRHEA Graduate Education Strand is currently working on practical solutions in facilitating the delivery and organisation of inter-institutional structured programmes.

A number of proposals related to graduate education were submitted for funding under the Programme for Research in Third-Level Institutions (PRTLI) Cycle 5. One strand of the call was targeted explicitly towards structured PhD education. UCD was involved in a total of 10 proposals for structured and thematic PhD programmes. This process involved extensive design and specification phases for submission of the proposals from February to July 2009 culminating in review visits in the HEA Offices during November. UCD was lead partner on 4 of these proposals and had significant involvement in the other 6 proposals submitted. Again we wish to thank all of those involved for their commitment, time and effort invested in this process.

A proposal for a TCD-UCD Innovation Academy was submitted for funding under the infrastructure strand of the PRTLI call. The TCD-UCD Innovation Academy is a new collaborative joint initiative between Trinity College Dublin (TCD), University College Dublin (UCD) and Industry. It is the educational centrepiece of the Innovation Alliance between TCD and UCD, which was established earlier this year as a response to a stated national policy objective of developing Ireland as a Smart Economy. The Innovation Academy is the mechanism to embed and deliver innovation and entrepreneurship training across all structured PhD programmes. It will be an exciting intellectual space where students and academics interact in interdisciplinary groups with business and industry mentors to develop and nurture creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship and teamwork. Students will experience design processes used in major companies and will be mentored by industry experts and entrepreneurs, particularly by those who have exploited revolutionary ideas that arose from their research. They will not just learn about innovation or to understand innovation but to do innovation in specialised innovation spaces. This approach builds on and derives from models such as in the D. School in Stanford, the Øresund Entrepreneurship Academy, and the Innovation Club at MIT. UCD and TCD are using the combined resources of their external partners, business schools and other relevant disciplines and experts to provide a unique programme, combining the education and research in innovation and entrepreneurship with case studies and real experience. The site visit review for this PRTLI proposal took place on 28 September 2009. We would like to thank all who contributed to and supported this initiative in very many different ways throughout the design and evaluation phase.

UCD is offering a broad range of transferable skills workshops and modules in 09/10 that align with the IUA (Irish Universities Association) PhD Graduates' Skills Statement. In excess of 180 graduate students across a range of disciplines have registered to attend workshops this semester. In addition a number of online self-paced workshops are available through Blackboard covering topics such as research skills, IP awareness, career planning and academic publishing.

Five transferable skills workshops have already taken place and feedback collected from students shows a very high level of satisfaction across a range of evaluation criteria. Working closely with the Graduate Schools, Graduate Studies continually monitors the Transferable Skills portfolio to ensure we are delivering what the student needs and to identify any gaps. The portfolio is continuously evolving and we are working closely with other University stakeholders to deliver Transferable Skills workshops in other areas which build on the online materials. Information on the current portfolio of offerings is available through the Graduate Studies Transferable Skills Portal at http://www.ucd.ie/graduatestudies/transferableskills/.

The online material is suitable for local integration into programmes and existing research skills modules. Anyone wishing to hear more about these opportunities should contact Marian O'Connor in UCD Graduate Studies (marian.oconnor@ucd.ie) who will arrange viewing access to the materials.

The IUA 4th Level Network Conference The Evolving Landscape of Irish Graduate Education took place at TCD on 10th and 11th November 2009. The conference included presentations and workshops on research student development, structured PhD programmes, and the graduate student experience. Emer Cunningham presented on the implementation of the Research and Professional Development Plan (RPDP) at UCD and Profs. Julie Berndsen and Carol O'Sullivan (TCD) presented on the TCD-UCD Innovation Academy. Further details can be found at http://www.4thlevelireland.ie/press/conference-2009.php.

The UK Council for Graduate Education (UKCGE) in conjunction with Middlesex University delivered the first International Conference on Professional Doctorates in London on November 9th/10th 2009. Janet Carton (Graduate Studies) and Michael Kennedy (Academic Secretariat) attended the conference with a view to identifying key challenges for further strategic development of Professional Doctorates within UCD and presented a joint paper (with Emer Cunningham) on 'Supporting Mentoring of Professional Doctorates'. A report on the conference was presented to UGPB in November and will be presented to Graduate Schools over the coming months. Further information on the conference can be found at http://www.ukcge.ac.uk/events/pastevents/0910area/icpd.htm.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) has been signed by a number of Universities in the U21 consortium of leading international research intensive universities including UCD. Actions are now being planned to stimulate the implementation of such joint PhD programmes. These will be discussed at the next meeting of the Deans and Directors of Graduate Studies (DDOGS) of the U21 consortium in Australia in April 2010. Staff interested in developing these joint PhD programme should contact Professor Michael P Ryan, UCD Dean of Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Training (e-mail: michael.p.ryan@ucd.ie).

The UCD Dean of Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Training hosted a visit of Dr. Izo Abram, Director of Office of European Affairs of CNRS to UCD in November. Dr Izo was accompanied by Dr Martin Hynes, CEO of the Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology (IRCSET). Opportunities were discussed for closer cooperation of research activities between UCD and CNRS under the different programmes and funding available from CNRS.