In 2025/26, UCD Innovation Academy grew, collaborated, and delivered real results, from classrooms and MakerSpace projects to global partnerships and real-world challenges.

As another academic year comes to a close, UCD Innovation Academy’s 2025/26 Year in Review offers an opportunity to look back at a year shaped by the question: how can education prepare people not just to respond to change, but to shape what comes next?

At a time when artificial intelligence, technological disruption, climate change and global uncertainty are transforming the world of work and education, UCD Innovation Academy continued to champion an approach centred on creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and learning through real-world challenges.

Across Ireland and internationally, the Academy continued to build partnerships that connect learning with real challenges and communities.
But beyond the numbers, 2025/26 was about creating opportunities for people to think differently, work together and turn ideas into action.

 

 

Transforming learning in an age of AI

Artificial intelligence has made this a particularly significant year for education. As AI changes how people learn, work and solve problems, the skills that remain distinctly human become increasingly important: critical thinking, creative problem-solving, collaboration and the ability to navigate uncertainty.

This is at the heart of UCD Innovation Academy’s approach to general education.

In its 12th year of delivering undergraduate electives at UCD, students could choose from a broad portfolio of modules spanning Creative Thinking & Innovation, Design Your Life, Essentials of Entrepreneurship, Innovation for Sustainability, Social Entrepreneurship, Design Thinking for Innovation, Virtual Reality for Future Skills and more.

Students who finished three modules or more were also honoured and celebrated at the end of the year.

Learning for Life: postgraduate and professional education

Innovation Academy’s commitment to lifelong learning continued to grow throughout 2025/26.

A total of 900 lifelong learners participated in accredited and executive programmes, including Graduate Certificates, Professional Diplomas, an MSc and professional qualifications focused on creativity, innovation, leadership, entrepreneurship, sustainability and education. Within the postgraduate accredited programmes alone, 455 students participated this year.

The year also marked an important milestone for the Professional Diploma programmes.

For the first time, the Professional Diploma in Creativity, Innovation and Leadership was delivered as a fully in-person programme during the summer. At the same time, the Professional Diploma in Innovation for Sustainability adopted a blended format, with Module 1: Creative Thinking and Innovation delivered at UCD Belfield. Together, the cohorts took part in an immersive summer school experience built around hands-on and experiential learning. 67 lifelong learners participated in the inaugural Professional Diploma Summer School.

The experience extended beyond the classroom, with students taking part in activities across the UCD campus and exploring creativity, innovation and sustainability through different environments and perspectives.

From ideas to prototypes: the MakerSpace

If Innovation Academy is about turning ideas into action, the MakerSpace is where many of those ideas become tangible.

During 2025/26, the MakerSpace welcomed more than 680 bookings involving approximately 1,500 students from across UCD, spanning Engineering and Architecture, Science, Social Sciences and Law, Business, Health and Agricultural Sciences, and Arts and Humanities. Students used the space to explore technologies including 3D printing, vacuum forming and laser cutting, supported by the MakerSpace team.

The MakerSpace also supported students developing innovative solutions under pressure. One student team created a working prototype for a sustainable floating farming concept in just one day, helping them win the UCD SDG Pitching Competition and progress towards an international opportunity at the INNOVA EUROPE Summit in Finland.

Greenacre: learning beyond the classroom

The Academy’s commitment to experiential learning also extends outdoors through UCD Greenacre Sustainability Hub.

Located within UCD’s woodland campus in Belfield, Greenacre acts as an outdoor teaching and living laboratory where students can explore sustainability through direct experience. It supported learning for more than 90 students across undergraduate and master’s programmes, while also supporting research collaborations across Agriculture and Food Science, Biosystems and Food Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Architecture.

Greenacre also became a hub for wider community engagement. More than 350 participants took part in major cross-campus events during the year, involving people from more than 15 UCD Schools and units. Biodiversity Week workshops introduced participants to species identification, field observation, soil sampling and citizen science methods.

Through volunteering, internships and an artist residency, Greenacre also provided opportunities for students to develop practical skills beyond traditional academic settings.

Connecting education with the real world

Challenge-based learning is central to the Innovation Academy model, and 2025/26 saw this approach continue through a growing network of industry, public sector and community partnerships.

For the fourth consecutive year, the Academy partnered with Deloitte, bringing Creative Thinking and Innovation classes into Deloitte’s offices for a week in March. Students worked alongside Deloitte partners and subject matter experts to address real organisational challenges and received feedback in a genuine business environment.

The Academy also began a new multi-year partnership with the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, following a competitive tender. The collaboration includes a six-month programme designed to develop innovation champions within the department, alongside workshops addressing live departmental challenges.

Longstanding partnerships with organisations including ESB and EXL similarly focus on developing innovation capability through applied, experiential programmes rather than theoretical instruction.

And at UCD itself, the Academy helped launch the O’Connor Centre for Learning with a two-day innovation hackathon asking students to consider a deceptively simple question: How might we design the university of the future? Students from across disciplines worked together on bold ideas through collaboration and rapid prototyping.

Taking innovation education global

The Academy’s work in 2025/26 extended well beyond the UCD campus.

In Beijing, 88 students participated in Innovation Academy electives, including a two-week Creative Thinking and Innovation module at Beijing-Dublin International College. Students worked on real-world sustainability challenges with Huawei while applying a hands-on, human-centred innovation methodology.

The Academy also continued its work with Vietnam National University, Hanoi (VNU) and the National University of Laos (NUOL), supporting innovation, entrepreneurship and sustainability in higher education. The wider VIBE programme with VNU has now reached approximately 250,000 Vietnamese students over nine years, while the partnership with NUOL connects with a university community of around 30,000 students.

In Europe, 52 students from across the continent participated in the Creative Thinking & Innovation module as part of the NICE Summer Programme. Meanwhile, the Academy’s partnership with Dutch secondary school network OMO continued to support educational changemakers across a network representing 68 schools and more than 61,000 students.

These collaborations demonstrate the Academy’s ambition to share and adapt its approach to innovation education across different educational and cultural contexts.

Looking ahead: shaping the future of education

The year also brought a significant development in the Academy’s academic oversight and global engagement.

In 2025/26, Professor Christine Ortiz of MIT, Morris Cohen Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Director of the MIT Technology and Policy Program, was appointed as UCD Innovation Academy’s new External Examiner.

Professor Ortiz brings extensive experience spanning innovation, technology policy and inclusive education, including her work as Founder of Station1. Her appointment reflects the Academy’s commitment to maintaining a world-class standard in experiential, challenge-based education as AI and global disruption continue to reshape learning.

It is a fitting development for an Academy whose work is increasingly focused on one of the biggest questions facing education today: what should learning look like when the world is changing faster than ever?

Looking back and moving forward

The 2025/26 Year in Review is ultimately more than a record of programmes, partnerships and participation figures. It captures an educational philosophy in action.

Across lecture rooms, workplaces, the MakerSpace, Greenacre, international classrooms and community spaces, the emphasis remains consistent: learn by doing, work across boundaries, engage with real challenges and create together.

That approach is becoming increasingly important in a world where the problems we face cannot be solved by one discipline, one organisation or one person alone.

As UCD Innovation Academy looks towards the year ahead, the ambition is not simply to keep pace with change. It is to continue creating the conditions in which students, professionals, researchers, educators and organisations can think differently, collaborate meaningfully and turn ideas into impact.

Read the full Year In Review Report above. Alternatively, you may also view it on Issuu.