Why work with us?

DICE (Design, Innovation, Creativity, Entrepreneurship) is a hybrid centre across the areas of Business, Design and Humanities where at its core it looks to learning as an integral part of innovation and action.

The Faculty of Business at ATU Donegal has a varied mix disciplines which gives a hybrid perspective on the world. Paradoxically diversity and divergence in our vision/understanding are key to making sense of the world we live in today, where we face seismic advancements in technologies and the 4th industrial revolution. This hybrid mix straddles an interpretation of the 21st century through cultural, social and learning prisms coupled with our mix of innovation and research expertise for all the challenges the 21st century presents.

DICE offers a set of skills, competencies and perspectives which are positioned as transdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary to all our various industries, and societies of people. We are a centre of learning facilitators and actioneers at heart, that are interested in engaging with the realities that are emergent in our various futures and imagineering innovative ways of thinking and doing things differently.

Expertise and Interdisciplinary teams

The researchers and innovators at DICE have accumulated experience the equivalence of decades many times over, through our Doctoral studies and in facing real world challenges by working and supporting industry leaders to become more innovative and creative. We see challenges and opportunities differently, and are interested in promoting and creating change using a diverse mix of business strategists, human scientists, design technologists and creative thinker. We put people and their problems at the heart of innovation, leadership and change for creating success, today and tomorrow, across all our industries and communities.

Network effects and extended reach

Our people and teams offer a global web of researchers and innovators through our extended networks of visiting Professors and highly successful entrepreneur’s that we have worked with, across a diverse range of industries and services. A knowledge shared is a knowledge doubled…such is the complexity of challenges the 21st century brings today, we believe leveraging knowledge networks is a key facet in solving our problems. A principle of systems theory asks, is your variety equal your complexity. Such is the scale of the complexity and pace of change we face today, having extended knowledge networks prevent you from being prisoners of your own thinking and help keep you as current as change itself is across the global.

Lifelong learning and Taking action – Reality based Learning

Lifelong learning and taking action is a key thread in everything we do, the relationship between doing, knowing and becoming. It’s impossible to separate innovation from learning, leadership and action, and that’s why taking action via reality based learning (situated learning) is a key tenet of how we approach problems. Developing cycles and reflecting on the extent of our progress has been our primary mode of driving and developing innovations. We use tried and tested methodologies, a combination of international best practice and also home grown from our own team of experts. We strive to keep in touch with what is happening at street level in our societies and industries, to be street smart and possess the wisdom and know-how in the worlds of both culture and business.