High achieving students in the sporting arena will have a new opportunity to realise their professional career ambitions thanks to unique sports scholarship collaboration between the global biopharmaceutical company, AbbVie, and IT Sligo.
The AbbVie Sports Scholarship programme aims to nurture the educational, sporting and leadership ambitions of students, and is now inviting applications for the 2016/17 academic year.
The programme, which will support the students financially, also includes eligibility for a paid Internship, which will enable successful students the opportunity to gain a practical insight and experience with a major international company, helping them to shape their professional working ambitions.
AbbVie Ballytivnan, the AbbVie site which is directly supporting the initiative, currently produces drug delivery devices, including a pen-style injector that is used by patients around the world who use the company’s treatment indicated for a range of immune-related illnesses.
The site is also the company’s global ‘combination devices centre of excellence’ for medical device manufacture, precision engineering, plastics moulding and metrology (the theoretical and practical aspects of measurement).
The new initiative will appeal to current and future sports scholars who are taking courses at IT Sligo in Precision Engineering, Mechatronics and Biomedical Science courses*.
AbbVie will monitor and evaluate selected athletes with a view towards their suitability for potential longer term talent and career recruitment programmes.
Welcoming the new partnership Joe Kumor, Site Director at AbbVie Ballytivnan said:
“I’m delighted to be announcing this exciting new partnership with IT Sligo today as it continues AbbVie’s tradition of developing the next generation of employees and potential leaders, particularly as these engineering courses reflect the future skillset needs for AbbVie Ballytivnan.
“This collaboration not only reflects our commitment to improving the health and wellbeing of the local community, it also provides a fantastic opportunity for young and ambitious sporting talent to harness their unique talents to make a remarkable impact on people’s lives,” he added.
The Sports Scholarship programme is the latest in a series of ongoing collaborations between AbbVie and IT Sligo.
In 2015 AbbVie, Ballytivnan and the Institute began a partnership agreement for the delivery of online educational programmes to provide upskilling opportunities for current AbbVie staff members across disciplines such as Quality Control, Polymer Processing, Mechatronics and Manufacturing Management. The two organisations have also worked closely in the development stages of a new Precision Engineering Centre of Excellence at IT Sligo.
In addition, IT Sligo and AbbVie also sponsor Sligo GAA and the presence of their two logos on the Sligo team jerseys further reflects close ties between both organisations.
Professor Vincent Cunnane, President of IT Sligo described this latest collaboration as a perfect illustration of the Institute’s core mission.
“Producing rounded graduates who can realise their full potential is at the heart of what IT Sligo is all about,” Prof Cunnane said. “This collaboration with AbbVie not only supports the students financially. It also opens exciting new doors to a potentially rewarding career. Very often students are focussed on the next race, the next match – and less so on the bigger picture – their working careers. This scholarship helps provide the environment to enable the sports scholar to achieve their full potential both inside and outside the sporting arena.”
Applications for the AbbVie Sports Scholarship programme are open until Friday, July 29th, 2016. Interested students can apply online at itsligo.ie.
L-R: Current IT Sligo Sports Scholarship students Catherine Hyndman (Soccer), Declan Reidy (Golf) & Colin Donegan (Lacrosse) were at AbbVie on Monday to promote the new AbbVie Sports Scholarship & Internship programme.
