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Thank you for your interest in the role of President of the Technological University of the Shannon.
TUS is a young university, receiving its designation in 2021, but built on decades of educational tradition across the Midwest and Midlands of Ireland and rooted in communities that have long believed in the transformative power of learning.
Our first President, Professor Vincent Cunnane, has been instrumental in shaping TUS during its early years. Under his leadership, the University has been guided by strong values, with a clear sense of purpose and deep roots in the places and people it serves. As Professor Cunnane prepares to retire in January 2027, TUS enters a new chapter, one that calls for a leader who can build on those foundations with the same level of commitment and confidence that put them in place.
The next President will lead a community of over 15,500 students across seven campuses spanning the heart of Ireland. They will work alongside staff committed to student-centred education that is genuinely accessible to all. They will support a research and innovation ecosystem that is already making a measurable difference to regional enterprise. They will develop TUS international presence in RUN EU and beyond. Most importantly, they will champion a shared set of lived values: inclusive, supportive, ambitious, innovative, sustainable, collaborative.
As TUS moves beyond its start-up phase, with the ambition to grow its physical and academic footprint, we are seeking an outstanding leader who sees the distinctive mission of this university clearly, who is energised by it, and who has the vision and the courage to lead it into the next stage of its development.
students across seven campuses in the Midwest and Midlands of Ireland
in Ireland for Graduate Employment — HEA Graduate Outcomes Survey
10 universities across 9 countries, TUS is a founding member of RUN-EU
recognised internationally for excellence in teaching, employability, inclusion and innovation
The Technological University of the Shannon exists to make higher education a transformative force in the lives of the people and communities it serves.
With more than 15,500 students across seven campuses in four counties, TUS is defined by its commitment to education that is student-centred, research-informed, and grounded. Its programmes connect directly to the needs of industry, enterprise, and civic life; its research agenda is built around real-world challenges; and its campuses serve as anchors for economic and cultural development.
Through its membership of the RUN-EU European University Network, TUS extends that ambition internationally, connecting students, staff, and partners to a broader ecosystem of learning and innovation. This is a university for whom regional strength and national excellence are mutually reinforcing.
The University’s strategic priorities reflect both its heritage and its horizon: deepening access and widening inclusion, accelerating research and innovation, strengthening industry and community partnerships, and building the institutional capacity to sustain excellence across a distributed, multi-campus organisation. TUS operates in an evolving landscape for technological universities, one that presents new opportunities for institutions with clarity of purpose and confidence in their own distinct character.
The Technological University of the Shannon is a multi-campus university with seven campuses across Ireland’s Midwest and Midlands, in Limerick (Moylish, Clare Street and Coonagh), Athlone, Ennis, Thurles and Clonmel. Designated in 2021, TUS builds on decades of applied higher education close to the communities we serve.
TUS’s geographic footprint is distinctive. The University has a unique opportunity, and responsibility, to drive economic development, support enterprise, and widen access to higher education across a region that is home to both rural and urban communities, as well as to some of the country’s most strategically significant industrial and business spaces.
With more than 15,500 students enrolled across four faculties: Business, Hospitality and Humanities; Engineering and Technology; the Limerick School of Art and Design; Science and Health, TUS serves one of the most diverse student bodies in Irish higher education. Its students come from every county in Ireland, closely reflect the socio-economic structure of the Irish population, and represent more than 120 countries right across the world.
Reporting to the Governing Body, the President will provide strategic and operational leadership across the University, ensuring strong governance, financial sustainability, and organisational effectiveness. The successful candidate will lead the delivery of the University’s next strategic plan, champion excellence in teaching, learning, research and innovation, and enhance the student experience. They will foster a culture of inclusion and collaboration, strengthen partnerships with industry, government and international stakeholders, and act as a leading ambassador for TUS at regional, national and global levels.
The ideal candidate will be an inspiring and visionary leader with a proven track record of senior leadership within higher education or a similarly complex organisation. They will bring significant experience in strategic planning, organisational transformation, financial and governance oversight, and stakeholder engagement. With outstanding communication, relationship-building and leadership skills, they will demonstrate a strong commitment to excellence, innovation, equality, diversity and inclusion. They will possess the integrity and empathy required to lead a diverse university community and shape the future of TUS.
The Technological University of the Shannon provides leading student-centred higher education that is research-informed, regionally relevant and accessible to all.
To be a catalyst for sustainable change through education and research that transforms lives, our region and the world beyond.
We embrace diversity as a key strength where everyone is included and has an equal opportunity to progress and achieve.
We care about our people and their well-being, and we maintain a student-centred ethos in all we do.
We set high standards and are courageous in our actions to deliver impact and achieve our potential.
We are forward-looking and encourage creativity and exploration that fosters unique ideas and inspires transformative change.
We are thought leaders and adopt a whole of institution approach to the challenges of sustainable development.
We are open, connected and engaged in bringing people together to develop, co-create and share knowledge for the benefit of our region and beyond.
TUS’s four faculties span an exceptionally broad range of disciplines from fine art and fashion to engineering, nursing, business and computing. Together they serve a student body of more than 15,500 across seven campuses.
From accountancy and law to culinary arts and social science, this faculty prepares graduates for careers in commerce, culture and community in a region where those boundaries are increasingly indistinct.
Educating the engineers, builders, designers and computing professionals who are shaping the infrastructure and digital economy of Ireland’s Midwest and Midlands in partnership with the industries that employ them.
The long-established and celebrated art school, LSAD brings together fine art, design, fashion and media in a creative environment that has produced generations of practitioners working at the highest levels of their fields. Next year, LSAD will celebrate its 175th anniversary.
Applied science, IT, nursing, pharmaceutical science, sport and nutrition, a faculty defined by its direct relevance to the health, wellbeing and technological capacity of the region, delivered in close partnership with healthcare providers and industry.
First Irish university to lead a European University Alliance — RUN-EU
represented across the TUS student and research community
First technological university in Ireland to receive the designation
Most socio-economically representative student body
TUS operates across the Research, Development and Innovation continuum, with a particular focus on the regions it serves. At the productive heart of Ireland, these are home to world-class manufacturing, biopharma, agri-food, engineering, and technology industries, and to communities whose economic futures are directly shaped by the quality of the higher education and research infrastructure they can access.
TUS is a leader in impacting on Research, Development and Innovation for many years across the region.
Most latterly, this includes TU RISE, a four-year programme co-funded by the Government of Ireland and the European Union, TUS is investing €12 million in building additional research, development and innovation capacity that works directly with enterprises to develop innovative, high-value products and services, aligned to the region’s specific strengths: advanced manufacturing and engineering; biopharma, life sciences and food; ICT and creative industries; and sustainable development.
Learn more about TU RISE
Flexible learning pathways, apprenticeships, online and part-time provision, mature entry routes and non-traditional access programmes all exist because TUS understands that the students who benefit most from higher education are often not the ones who find it easiest to access. The University’s Access Services, Disability Supports, Learning Support Unit, Student Counselling and Chaplaincy services are part of the core educational offering.
TUS was the first technological university in Ireland to receive the University of Sanctuary designation, a recognition of our culture, in which diversity is not managed but celebrated, and in which a student from any background, in any circumstances, can find a place that is genuinely theirs.
That culture has been recognised internationally. TUS holds a QS 5-Star rating for excellence across teaching, employability, inclusion and innovation, placing it among a select group of universities worldwide acknowledged for the quality and breadth of the student experience they provide.
Learn more about TUS Access Services
Sustainability is one of TUS’s six core values and one of the core challenges of the region it serves. The Midwest and Midlands of Ireland comprise farmlands and floodplains, manufacturing corridors, towns and a city region, all communities whose futures depend on getting the transition to a sustainable economy right.
TUS has adopted a whole-of-institution approach to sustainable development, embedding the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals across its operations, its research and its education. This is the practical work of building graduate attributes, research capacity and institutional culture that the next generation of regional and national challenges will demand.
Learn more about TUS Sustainability
TUS will be supported in this appointment process by the executive search firm Perrett Laver and enquiries can be made directly to Chris McCann. Applications should consist of a full curriculum vitae detailing academic and professional qualifications and experience. CVs should be accompanied by a covering letter describing briefly how candidates meet the criteria outlined in the job description, why the appointment is of interest and what they believe they can bring to the role.
Completed applications should be uploaded HERE quoting reference 8452.
The closing date for applications will be 5pm Irish Standard Time, Friday 7th August 2026.
Michelle is a Managing Partner.
Michelle works in Perrett Laver’s Dublin office. She is a Partner, former Head of the Project Management team and has worked across a number of Perrett Laver’s global Offices including London, Chicago and Hong Kong. She works with organisations across our Global Higher Education, Sport, Social Impact and Health sectors.
