This special issue of the Journal of European Industrial Training is based around theProgramme for University-Industry Interface (PUII) located at the University ofLimerick (UL) in Ireland. The contributors are members of the project team and theirassociates and the editors are Douglas Weir, Chair of the project Academic AdvisoryBoard and John O'Donoghue of the UL, member of the project Executive Board.PUII stems from an initiative of the Irish Government in 2001 to support companyupskilling, postgraduate conversion courses and maintenance of the national ITinfrastructure. It is funded for the period 2003-2006 through the Higher EducationAuthority (HEA) under the Information Technology Investment Fund 2001-2006(Measure 1.2) from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. Although PUII is based at the UL, it depends for its success on a genuine partnership between theuniversity and industry.Although the project is national in character and concerned with one country'sefforts to plan a successful future based on a knowledge economy, the editors believethat such initiatives will find a strong resonance across international boundaries. Aproject that focuses on reconciling emerging issues between the individual, educationand employability in a knowledge-based economy must intersect concerns andinterests shared by researchers and practitioners in a number of fields includinghuman resource development (HRD).Background to the projectIn the 1990s the Government of Ireland set up an expert group to advise on Ireland'sskill needs. In its third report (Forfas, 2001) the group drew attention to the continuingskill shortages and labour shortages in the Irish economy, notwithstanding a trend forrising labour force participation rates and net immigration inflows. That reportaccordingly recommended a number of further measures to augment labour

supply,not only in the area of participation rates, but also including a systematic programmeof training and re-training.Among areas identified for further government investment were: companyupskilling, part-time education and post-graduate conversion courses (especially ininformation technology), and encouragement of careers in research (especially inscience and engineering).In response to the report of the expert group, the relevant Ministers of the IrishGovernment created significant funds, exceeding e160 million, to be administered bythe HEA. HEA then invited the higher education institutions across Ireland to submitproposals for support from these funds, in the funding years 2001-2006, which wouldaddress the expert group's recommendations.One of the applications to the HEA from the UL (December 2002) was targeted onupskilling and in-company training. The application was approved and funding inexcess of e500,000 awarded by HEA over the period 2003 to 2006.In this manner, the PUII at the UL was born.The wider Irish contextAlthough being published since PUII commenced its programme, a further report toGovernment from the Enterprise Strategy Group - Ahead of the Curve: Ireland's Placein the Global Economy (Enterprise Strategy Group, 2004) - is also influential. It sets thewider context within which the future of the Irish economy is located.Ireland's economic growth, particularly in the 1990s, has now taken its grossnational product (GNP) and gross domestic product (GDP) beyond the European Union(EU) average. Main factors in this success have been EU regional aid, state-industrypartnerships, a well-qualified workforce, the presence of industry sectors which arebooming globally, and a favourable demographic profile.These factors, however, represent the causes of past successes whereas a differentstrategy - based on service industries to drive GDP

growth and knowledge industriesto drive economic development - is required for future success:In the context of our current success, calls for a new and different enterprise strategy mayappear alarmist. However, the current model of enterprise development in this small, open economy must adapt to face these challenges. There are significant areas of opportunity forIreland to exploit its natural advantages and to develop new areas of competence in pursuit ofsustainable enterprises. To position Ireland to exploit these and to grow robustly in thedecade to come, there is an immediate requirement to re-define the strategy for enterprisepolicy and development in Ireland . . .Enterprise in Ireland will succeed by focusing on and reinforcing niche areas of activity.These can evolve from a number of sources, including natural resources, research andclusters or groupings of companies with specific expertise (Enterprise Strategy Group, 2004,p. xi).Beyond the broad strategy, Ahead of the Curve also highlights a number of means ofachieving "next generation" success. These include:. creating networks of companies with common interests "to facilitate knowledgetransfer, disseminate market knowledge, foster innovation, inform the researchagenda and identify infrastructure needs specific to sectoral development"; and. building on world-class skills, education and training.Each of these specifics is part of the PUII agenda, but both are not without theirdifficulties. One of Scotland's leading business commentators (Young, 2004) says that"Ireland ranks bottom of a group of 15 industrialised countries for the proportion ofGDP it devotes to primary and secondary level schooling" perhaps because asignificant proportion of its GDP consists of multinational company profits which arerepatriated back across the Atlantic. The result is that Ireland's GNP is much closer

tothe European average than its high GDP and, as a consequence, significant increases inspending on education (out of GNP) could only be made at the expense of other sectorsof government spending.While not ignoring spending on first and second level education, Ahead of the Curvedraws attention to changes which are required in tertiary education, particularly ingovernance "to enable flexible responses to the increasing pace of change" and infunding "to defining the differentiated but complementary roles of the universities andthe institutes of technology" so as to overtake the recommendation that:The proportion of graduates in Ireland should be in the top decile of OECD countries and thequality of awards from the Irish higher education sector should be benchmarkedinternationally (Enterprise Strategy Group, 2004, p. xviii).A key imminent activity (2005) for PUII in this area is to identify the role of highereducation in supporting learners for next generation employability.While only one of a number of initiatives that are being supported by the IrishGovernment, the PUII projects at the UL thus rate highly for the fit between theirobjectives and the national agenda for developing skills, capabilities and resources tobuild sustainable enterprises for the future.The PUIIThe PUII is a unique collaboration between Irish industry and higher education. PUII'sraison d'eˆ tre is to improve the interaction between industry and academia for thebenefit of all. The PUII team is committed to preparing the workforce for nextgeneration employability in the manufacturing (IT) and services sectors, and industry generally, by promoting the development of the competencies necessary to succeed in aknowledge-based society.PUII seeks to understand how education providers can support the learning ofmature, adult, second-chance, employed and unemployed people with at least

a basicthird level education, particularly in IT and related disciplines. The Programme can bedistinguished from others by its clear focus on educating and developing the individualin a way that meets the learning needs of the individual and provides economic valuefor the organisation.The aims of the Programme are to:. identify the skills and technical competencies needed by individuals to guaranteethe future economic development of Ireland; and. research and pilot new and innovative learning models that will deliverin-company education and training for next generation employability.The group responsible for the funding proposal developed the blueprint for the PUIIstructures. Subsequently, this group set up PUII structures, as they now exist (seeMcQuade and Maguire (2005), this issue for a fuller discussion of PUII structures). Nextthe group began to operationalise all aspects of the programme on a phased basis.The work of PUII is advanced and championed by:. members of its boards (academics, voluntary);. project manager (contract appointment, full-time);. post-doctoral research assistants (contract appointment);. PhD students (supported); and. consultants (short term contract).PUII seeks to influence national economic and educational policy in its area of activity,and to develop new insights, models, and training products consistent with forwardthinking in next generation employment and training. These intellectual products willbe evident in the project's publications that include:. submissions/presentations to Government agencies, committees and task forces;. reports;. academic research papers;. conference presentations; and. new training models.An example of how the PUII strategy and methodology meets the national agenda isshown from the very first Community of Practice (CoP 1 - The Competencies for NextGeneration Employability) whose outcomes

(Maguire.