Czechs look to CUC for inspiration
Senior officials from the Liberec region of the Czech Republic flew to Cornwall last week to find out how the Combined Universities in Cornwall (CUC) initiative is increasing higher education opportunities and driving economic regeneration.
The group learned how the University of Exeter in Cornwall and University College Falmouth are pioneering a new approach to higher education by sharing facilities at the Tremough campus. They were also welcomed at Cornwall College Camborne and gained an understanding of the CUC's innovative structure, which is built on a central hub (Tremough) which supports and is supported by the 'rim' of Cornwall College, Truro College and Penwith College campuses offering university-level education at many sites across the region. The CUC partnership also includes the University of Plymouth, which awards most of the foundation degrees offered at the rim colleges and trains Cornwall's nurses through its Faculty of Health and Social Work in Truro, the Open University and the College of St. Mark and St. John.
CUC Coordinator, Gordon Kelly, accompanied the Czech officials during their stay:
"Our visitors were clearly inspired by what they saw in Cornwall. Like Cornwall, the Liberec region has seen the decline of its traditional heavy industries. They are now looking to knowledge-intensive industries for their future prosperity, but to succeed they need to retrain and educate their workforce and employees to tackle the challenges of the 21st century economy. They asked to come here because in Cornwall we have been very successful in using investment from the Government and Objective One to drive a rapid, massive expansion of higher education by working together in a partnership that is so much more than the sum of its parts."
This latest expression of interest from overseas comes a month after the CUC held a series of events in Brussels, including a function in the European Parliament, attended by representatives from over 40 European regions, all hoping to learn from the groundbreaking initiatives happening in Cornwall.
The Czech delegation also visited Research Instruments at the company's base in Falmouth to see an example of the type of knowledge-based businesses which education and regeneration leaders believe are key to Cornwall's regeneration in the years ahead. Research Instruments is a specialist in technology for IVF treatment and has employed local graduates through the Unlocking Cornish Potential graduate placement programme.