AIPEC Wins the Best Collaboration category and Overall Excellence Award at 2025 Irish Education Awards

The 2025 All-Ireland Interprofessional Healthcare Challenge took place in early April in the Health Science Centre, UCD Belfield. Dr. Lisa Rogers and Rachel Howe were part of a CHAS organising committee for the 2025 competition. AIPEC is an intervarsity education competition that provides students from all health disciplines with the opportunity to work collaboratively with colleagues from different professions to address complex care challenges. The event featured student teams from Queen’s University Belfast, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Trinity College Dublin, Ulster University, University College Cork, University College Dublin, University of Galway, and University of Limerick. Teams were tasked with preparing a patient management plan lasting no more than eight minutes in response to a complex case study, which they presented at the live event. Our own Children's and General student, Aoife McEvoy represented SNMHS in the 2025 UCD team. 

Following the success of the event, we are delighted to announce that AIPEC (All Ireland Interprofessional Healthcare Challenge for students) was awarded the prize for Best Collaboration Project at the Irish  (opens in a new window)Education Awards in Dublin and the final top prize for Overall Excellence! The awards were based on the 2024 event led and hosted by Dr Paul McCague in Queen's University Belfast. 

Out of over 160 submissions, this is a huge achievement and recognises the value and importance of AIPEC. The judges highlighted AIPEC as an excellent example of collaborative problem solving, with a well structured consortium across the Universities. The judges commended the interprofessional collaboration which is crucial for the future of healthcare and that AIPEC not only strengthens team dynamics but will contribute to improved patient outcomes.

AIPEC is an annual student intervarsity, interprofessional student team challenge for students in health and social care programmes. It has grown from strength to strength each year and is a novel and transformative collaboration, championing interprofessional education (IPE) across eight higher education institutions across the island of Ireland. The challenge prepares the next generation of healthcare professionals for the demands of modern healthcare delivery. You can read more about the competition here.