FE COLLEGES
BELFAST Metropolitan College recently welcomed President of Kurdistan, His Excellency Mosoud Barzani, to its Titanic Quarter Campus.
Attending the visit was Employment and Learning Minister Dr Stephen Farry, who together with the Principal, Marie-Thérèse McGivern, showed the President the cutting edge student and classroom facilities located within the state-of-the-art campus.
The Minister said: “I welcome the opportunity to highlight and showcase to the President the high-class professional and vocational training that is on offer at the largest single further education campus in Northern Ireland. The facility offers a stimulating environment for skills development and provides this region with real and relevant learning choices that meet the needs of students, employers and the community across Northern Ireland, and indeed further afield.
“Companies across Northern Ireland are already reaping the benefits of the further education sector’s expertise, whether in research and development, prototyping and testing of new products or ideas, carrying out training needs analyses, offering incubation facilities or developing bespoke training solutions to improve profitability.”
The President met with a number of students as well as apprenticeships from the College’s innovative Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Apprenticeship Pilot.
Belfast Met Principal and Chief Executive Marie-Thérèse McGivern said: “Belfast Met is at the cutting edge in delivering quality vocational education and training and higher education programmes that can help young people and adults into employment and also in providing the support our local companies need to grow. Belfast Met plays a key role in supporting local economic development and in providing support for foreign direct investment through programmes such as Assured Skills.
“Developing international relationships not only supports local companies and our focused efforts to grow export opportunities and secure foreign direct investment but also enhances the learning experiences for our students and their understanding about global opportunities and Northern Ireland’s relationship with the world around us.”
THE UNIVERSITY OF ULSTER
LEADING figures from education, business, science, international affairs and the arts are to be honoured by the University of Ulster at graduation ceremonies this year.
Award-winning journalists Fergal Keane and Simon Kelner, Oscar-winning director Terry George, the DJ David Holmes and President Barack Obama’s Ambassador at Large for Global Women’s Issues, Melanne Verveer are among those who will receive honorary doctorates from the University.
The announcement was made following the recent conferment of the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters (DLitt) to Sir Ian McKellen at the Magee campus for services to acting.
QUEEN’S
CHEMISTS from Queen’s University have been awarded £3m to create new methods of sustainable energy and to create technologies which will lower the cost of power.
Already the UK leader in Green Chemistry research, the team, from Queen’s School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, will also work on transforming fossil fuel resources more efficiently and improving energy storage.
The funding has been announced by the Minister for Universities and Science, David Willetts, as part of a UK-wide investment of £12.9m by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to create a UK Catalysis Hub. The Hub will focus on supporting UK economic growth while helping reduce CO2 emissions, produce cleaner water and generate more sustainable energy.
Professor Christopher Hardacre from the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Queen’s said: “This funding is tremendously important as the world urgently needs to develop greater sustainability and efficiency in energy use. Queen’s will focus on converting renewable sources such as solar and biomass into chemical and electrochemical energy for use in power generation, for example, fuel cells for cars and mobile phones to domestic and commercial combined heat and power systems. By studying the overall processes involved we will be able to see how making changes to them can improve efficiency and develop systems for clean, reliable energy.”