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The first of May 2022 is an exciting day for students, staff and stakeholders of the south east’s first university. South East Technological University is now officially established and we can say we study, work at or engage with a technological university.

We have put together this explainer to help our supporters and stakeholders including politicians, media, staff and students, teachers, career guidance counsellors, applicants, parents of students, local businesses with consistency on how write and say South East Technological University (SETU).

How we say and write the new name

South East Technological University is the full name of the new university.

SETU is how you abbreviate it.

How to pronounce the name consistently

SETU is pronounced by saying the individual initials rather than an acronym:

S pause E pause T pause U.

How to write the name consistently

In writing it will be referred to as South East Technological University (SETU) in the first instance and is abbreviated to SETU when mentioned subsequently.

"South East" in South East Technological University is two standalone words with no hyphenation.

SETU is how you write the abbreviated version. There are no dots or full stops in the abbreviation.

A quick list of do’s and don’ts

  • South East Technological University, not the South East Technological University (think of Ukraine and not the Ukraine)
  • South East is two words and always uppercased as it is an official title of an organisation
  • South East is not hyphenated in the title of the new entity. It is South East Technological University, not South-East Technological University
  • The Irish version is Ollscoil Teicneolaíochta an Oirdheiscirt - please note that the "an" in the Irish is lower case while all the other words are uppercase
  • In the second and subsequent instances (the shortened version of the name) it is SETU, not South East TU nor South-East TU
  • SETU is pronounced as individual letters of the alphabet "SETU", not "S EH TOO" nor "SEE TOO"
  • Never use dots or full points ie never S.E.T.U.
  • SETU is singular. Refer to SETU as "it" rather than "they"
  • It was commonplace to refer to ‘the Institute’ in internal or formal communications, this can be replaced by ‘the University’ or SETU
  • Note for readability it's best to lower case south east when referring to the region i.e. the south east’s first university
  • When referring to a technological university or plural technological universities there’s no need to upper case the T or U as they are not official titles. Only proper nouns like official titles are uppercased. It makes text easier to read and less confusing for people.

Naming research

The naming of Ireland’s newest technological university is the result of a robust research and engagement process with strategic marketing agency MCCP.

The strategic communications and branding work included significant desk research; online surveys conducted with 2,500 staff, current students, prospective students and their parents; focus groups with prospective students and their parents; and a series of in-depth interviews with stakeholders in the region. This was followed by a testing phase.

Two common themes emerged: the south east provided a unique and strong sense of place and the new university should reflect its new status as a technological university and these together informed the name recommendation.