A Research Cluster's Vision for a Pilot Factory in the South East Technological University of Ireland

A research activity proposed for the South East Technological University (SETU), Waterford in Ireland from its CONNEXIONS Catalyst pathway grant is the development of an interdisciplinary research cluster within INSYTE, which spans the schools of Business, Education, Science, Engineering and Industry. It aims to co-evolve cutting-edge models of educational delivery. This research cluster has emerged from the work of the INSYTE Centre located in the INSYTE-Cooley Research Lab (ICRL) in the Digitization Hub of the Luke Wadding Library at SETU, Waterford. Educational techniques have evolved over the past decades and these advances have not necessarily filtered down to various disciplines, e.g. engineering. The focus of this research cluster is to have the ‘Learner’ at the center of the ‘Learning Experience’ and to wrap the technology around them. This in turn, will increase the adoption and usage of such technologies. It will do this by cross-fertilization of knowledge over diverse domains to produce customised human-centred solutions for communities. Equality, diversity and inclusion are critical strands in this research. This paper shows that the European Union (EU) is supportive of changes in education required to close the skills gap in engineering and to enable reskilling to support Industry 5.0. In addition to the creation of cutting-edge models of educational delivery the vision of this multidisciplinary human centered research cluster is the establishment of a state-of-the-art pilot factory as an Irish national initiative in SETU, Waterford.