In a digitally disrupted world, the need to keep our skills up to date is more pressing than ever.
That’s the driver behind the groundbreaking MicroCreds project, started nearly six years ago by the Irish Universities Association (IUA) in collaboration with its member universities and a broad range of enterprise partners.
Working together, they transformed access to lifelong learning by taking a co-ordinated approach to the development and delivery of micro-credentials, which are short, accredited, industry-informed courses delivered in a bite-sized and flexible format.
As a result, Ireland has become the first country in Europe to implement a framework for quality-assured and accredited micro-credentials. With more than 20,000 learners engaged to date, its success has pushed these courses into the mainstream, and plans are afoot to scale it across the higher education sector.
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“The project was founded to break the mould in terms of how universities offer short-form learning,” says David Corscadden, acting MicroCreds project lead at the IUA.
Micro-credentials typically take between six and 12 weeks to complete, and are delivered either in person, online or in a hybrid manner. With more than 600 new programmes created so far, the subject matter is hugely diverse too. Courses include foundations of quantum programming, at the University of Galway; mastering AI in digital marketing, at Trinity College Dublin; and communication and interpreting in the Irish healthcare system, at the University of Limerick.
At its inception the MicroCreds project had four strategic aims, each of which was successfully delivered. These included the development of a national framework, collaboration with enterprise, capacity building in universities and the launch of a national online portal, microcreds.ie. The portal provides learners and employers with a one-stop shop for micro-credential courses, making it easier to find and access offerings from across the university sector.
The initiative has enabled businesses to rapidly address skills gaps and future-proof workforces. For the higher education sector, the project has fostered a culture of innovation and agility, developing structures for the ongoing delivery of micro-credentials.
But the biggest beneficiary has been Ireland, as MicroCreds has strengthened the country’s competitiveness in talent, and contributed to economic and social development.
As the model is both scalable and replicable, it provides a proven blueprint for other higher education systems seeking to innovate in response to rapidly changing skills needs.
The MicroCreds project was funded under Human Capital Initiative Pillar Three (Innovation and Agility), a €197 million Higher Education Authority (HEA) programme designed to transform higher education through deeper enterprise collaboration, with funds drawn from the National Training Fund.
“When we started the project,” says Corscadden, “we were looking at the major skills gaps across the Irish ecosystem. With MicroCreds, short, flexible learning became the prominent tool to help both individual learners and enterprise to address these skills gaps.”
‘As a society, we must ensure people are equipped to navigate an era of misinformation, disinformation and bad actors’
All IUA partner universities previously offered short courses in some form. “We wanted to reimagine that offering for learners and to focus it in on the exact, tangible skills people need either to advance their career or pivot into new industries,” he says.
Central to the project’s success has been bringing enterprise and learners on the micro-credential journey together.
“Now that we have proven the concept, it’s about turning it into a fully-fledged offering within the universities’ portfolio of courses – and the universities are steaming ahead with this mission.”
“As a country and across the world we are in a period of rapid economic, technological, demographic and geopolitical change, as well as a green transition,” says Grace Edge, interim head of skills and lifelong learning at the IUA. “As a result, people are going to need to learn, and relearn, throughout their lives.”
We only have to consider the impact of digitalisation, automation and artificial intelligence to appreciate that.
“We need to support workers who may be displaced by these developments to move into new roles and sectors,” she says. “At the same time, as a society, we must also ensure people are equipped to navigate an era of misinformation, disinformation and bad actors. The critical thinking and broader capabilities developed through higher education are more important than ever – which is why lifelong learning matters on every front.”
While universities have always catered to lifelong learners, the MicroCreds project has marked a step change. “It brought the entire sector together to deliver lifelong learning at scale – taking a more strategic, co-ordinated approach not only to provision, but to how these new opportunities are communicated to learners and employers. Because lifelong learning is only as effective as people knowing it exists, being able to access it and being supported to succeed. And while MicroCreds has demonstrated what is possible, the current policy and funding model remains largely oriented toward full-time undergraduate provision and will need to evolve to fully support lifelong learning at scale.”
The importance of the MicroCreds project is acknowledged by the fact that the HEA is now taking on the online portal. Over the course of the next two years, it will be expanding to include other higher education institutions, beyond those included in the initial project. The transition to the HEA marks a critical shift from project-based innovation to system-wide infrastructure for lifelong learning.
“The reason the HEA is taking it on,” says Vivienne Patterson, head of skills, engagement and statistics at the HEA, “is because, having spoken to enterprise leaders – particularly SMEs and indigenous companies – we recognise its importance.
“Such businesses have very little time to release people to do long courses but do recognise the importance of upskilling, particularly in an era of massive technological and climate change. A micro-credential gives an employee the ability to improve their skills in a very short space of time.”
Micro-credentials can also help to improve Ireland’s lifelong learning metrics, which, she says, are lower than some of its European peers. “We are cognisant that we need to increase the number of people engaging in lifelong learning,” Patterson says. “The barriers we see when we survey the public are cost and time. Micro-credentials address both, on top of which, we have secured additional funding from the Department [of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science] to subsidise a number of micro-credentials – up to 80 per cent of the cost. That subsidy is being paid for by the National Training Fund, which comes from a tax on employers. So, employers really should be availing of these courses.”
“The MicroCreds project has proved its worth and its value,” she says. “Micro-credentials are not overly onerous on your time yet give you relevant skills. That’s why there is now a national emphasis on them.”
Start your upskilling journey at microcreds.ie
