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This landscape report provides an overview of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) practice across the higher education sector in Ireland. It draws together publicly available institutional strategies, HEA Performance Framework Agreements 2024–2028, Climate Action Roadmaps and ESD to 2030 progress reports to outline current approaches to embedding ESD.

Structured as a series of institutional case studies, the report highlights how ESD is being addressed across teaching and learning, research, engagement and whole-institution practice, and identifies opportunities for collaboration and shared learning across the sector.

This discussion paper explores how student success in higher education is understood, defined and supported in contemporary Irish and international contexts. It brings together international research, national policy and insights from student focus groups conducted in Ireland in 2025 to examine success beyond traditional metrics such as retention, progression and completion.

The paper presents a holistic and relational view of student success, foregrounding belonging, mattering, agency and wellbeing alongside academic and outcomes-based measures. It situates student success as simultaneously student-defined, institution-enabled and outcomes-oriented, and considers the implications of this framing for teaching, learning, policy and system-level practice.

This report presents findings from the HEA Student Success Survey 2025, capturing how students across Ireland define, experience and achieve success in higher education. Based on responses from over 3,400 students across publicly funded higher education institutions, it provides a national, student-centred perspective on success.

The report explores students’ definitions of success, the supports and enablers that help them thrive, and the barriers that can hinder progress. It highlights the relational and holistic nature of student success, encompassing academic achievement alongside well-being, belonging, personal growth and future readiness.

Leading Change Together: Case Studies from the Teaching & Learning Conference 2025 is a collection of case studies showcasing practice-led examples from the HEA Teaching & Learning Conference 2025, held under the theme “Leading Change Together: Building the Future of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education”. The resource brings together institutional and practitioner contributions spanning topics such as inclusive learning design, education for sustainable development, professional learning, digital innovation and AI in teaching and learning. It illustrates how collaborative practice across Irish higher education is shaping future-focused approaches to enhancing teaching and learning.

This document sets out a detailed, values-led framework to support the ethical adoption of generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) in teaching and learning across Irish higher education. It builds on the HEA Generative AI Policy Framework by translating high-level principles into concrete provisions to guide institutional policy, governance and educational practice.

The principles address five core areas: academic integrity, equity and inclusion, critical engagement and AI literacy, privacy and data governance, and sustainable pedagogy. Together, they provide institutions with a practical reference for navigating the ethical, pedagogical and organisational challenges associated with generative AI, while safeguarding academic standards, student rights and institutional autonomy.

This policy framework provides national guidance for the responsible and values-based use of generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) in teaching and learning within Irish higher education. It is designed to support educators, academic leaders and professional staff in making informed decisions about the adoption and integration of gen AI technologies in educational practice.

The framework focuses specifically on teaching and learning, addressing issues such as academic integrity, assessment design, equity and inclusion, AI literacy, privacy and data governance, and sustainable pedagogy. It sets out five core principles to guide institutional policy development and practice, while allowing for local adaptation and institutional autonomy.

The HEA Education for Sustainable Development Spotlight Series 2025: Case Studies Compendium brings together 115 case studies from higher education institutions across Ireland. It showcases how universities and colleges are integrating sustainability and the UN Sustainable Development Goals into teaching, research, curriculum design, assessment practices and community engagement. It offers a comprehensive picture of national ESD activity and provides an accessible resource for educators and policymakers seeking examples of practice-based innovation.

The report – Generative AI in Higher Education Teaching and Learning: Sectoral Perspectives – was commissioned as part of the Higher Education Authority’s evidence-led approach to policy development.

The report captures the views of staff, students, and leaders across the Irish higher education system on the opportunities and challenges posed by artificial intelligence.

It brings together insights from ten thematic focus groups and a leadership summit, involving over 80 participants from across Ireland’s higher education institutions, alongside student representatives and sectoral stakeholders.

The Higher Education Authority (HEA) is developing a National Professional Recognition Framework for Teaching and Learning to support the recognition of teaching excellence across the sector. The framework builds on the Professional Development Framework (2016) and aims to provide clear, nationally agreed benchmarks for effective teaching practice. It will help inform career development, support institutional processes, and promote a shared understanding of teaching quality in Irish higher education.

This report presents the findings and recommendations of the 2025 Expert Group review of the Irish National Framework for Student Success in Higher Education. Commissioned by the HEA, it explores how the framework and accompanying toolkit have been engaged with across the sector and outlines a renewed vision for student success that is inclusive, strategic, and evidence-informed.

Since March 2020 higher education has experienced one of the most disruptive phases in its recent history. In a sector typified by considered, researched and incremental change, overnight everyone began emergency remote teaching, learning and assessing. The dramatic shift resulted in positives and negatives, and posed a series of questions for students, staff and other stakeholders. Though still living through the pandemic, in March 2021 fifteen partners from a range of stakeholders across the sector agreed to work together to answer one shared persistent and urgent question: In the context of Covid-19, what have we learnt and what does it mean for the future of teaching and learning in Irish higher education?

Guiding Framework for Embedding Student Success
The National Forum has developed this one-page guiding framework to inform conversations at institutional level in the development of approaches to embedding student success. The framework identifies three key pillars…
INDEx Survey: Final Summary Report

This INDEx Survey Final Summary Report outlines how INDEx Survey findings provided a source of evidence for the initial response to the COVID crisis, have supported data-informed decision-making in multiple ways, and represent an important baseline of pre-COVID teaching, learning and digital experience.

How to Choose an Open Licence

How to Choose an Open Licence is the second guide in the National Forum OER/OEP Series: Open Educational Resources and Open Educational Practices. The first guide in the series was the National Forum Open Licensing Toolkit, published in 2019.