DCU has hosted the Annual Martin McEvoy Annual Seminar Series, this year exploring the theme of The Engaged University: The role of the university in the development of its regions.

Dr Louise Kempton, Senior Research Fellow at the Newcastle University's Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies provided the keynote address. Dr Kempton is co-author of the Guide for DG Region on Connecting Universities to Regional Growth and is currently developing Newcastle University's Civic University Study Programme which examines the varying ways in which universities engage with civil society.

Dr Deiric O'Broin explained the rationale behind this year's seminar,

"With a national, and particularly, regional context of economic dislocation and social deprivation we need to urgently address, in partnership with others, the tasks of economic renewal and social development. The need to create a regional innovation system, accelerate enterprise development in North Dublin and establish a coherent learning framework is now a pressing issue. DCU in the Community, for its part, is promoting community-based teaching and research in a way which benefits the local community. Both enterprise and community engagement could be deeper and we need to look at how they might be better integrated."

Dr O'Broin continued,

"Innovation must be the driving force for the university engagement mission in addressing the socio-economic challenges of the region. The drive for enterprise competitiveness cannot neglect the imperative of social cohesion. In brief the engaged university must seek to consolidate and embed its relationships with local and regional enterprise and community leaders. It will seek to be internally adaptive and externally responsive to meet the challenges the region faces."

The Seminar series is named after Martin McEvoy in honour of his lifelong commitment to local enterprise development in the North Dublin area. Martin was Chairperson of NorDubCo, the North Dublin think-tank based at DCU. He also chaired the Finglas-Cabra Partnership in its early years and was a founding member and president of the North Dublin Chamber of Commerce.