The award-winning Programme for Students Learning With Communities supports staff, students and community partners to engage in community-engaged learning and research (also known as service-learning, community-based research, or Science Shop) across TU Dublin City Centre campus.
Students Learning With Communities involves TU Dublin City Campus staff and/or students collaborating with underserved community partners (local groups, not-for-profit organisations, charities etc) to develop real-life projects for mutual benefit. Learning comes alive for the students as they work on these projects with community partners, developing professional transferable skills, and enhancing their understanding of their specialist subject skills and of the community they work with. Students receive course credits for their work, as these projects are embedded into their studies. Community partners become part of the teaching process through the collaboration, contributing their knowledge and expertise, and increasing the relevance of TU Dublin research and programmes of study. The processes and outcomes of the collaborative projects are designed to further the community's goals. These projects give all participants the opportunity to engage in critical thinking, and ultimately aim to energise participants to work for social change.
You can follow our tweets and retweets relevant to community engaged research and learning on our twitter page, including funding and publication opportunities: @SLWCtudublin
We have lots of resources and information that might be useful to you, so do please get in touch at slwc@tudublin.ie, or by phone on 01 2207098. We would love to hear from you!
To be a vibrant, professional hub connecting TU Dublin students and staff to local, national and international communities, by linking learning with real life application, for mutual benefit.
- To encourage, support and develop the practice of community engaged research and learning within programmes across TU Dublin.
- To produce socially conscious graduates with applied and transferable professional skills.
- To build sustainable relationships with community and voluntary organisations.
- To create appropriate links with industry in support of community-based learning and community-based research.
- To collaborate with national and international educational institutions to advance best practice in the area.
Read about the Principles we use for our collaboratively designed projects with community partners and the principles which guide our programme staff.
Examples of previous community engaged research and learning projects.
Find out about our current European project which supports lecturers to rethink their teaching to include community engagement.
Photos: Conor Mulhern (Eyeon)