Dr Margaret Tynan, from SETU’s GROWTHub and the Faculty of Business, was honoured to receive the Academic Award at the Enterprise Ireland Student Entrepreneur Awards 2025.
The ceremony was hosted in the LINC centre at TU Dublin on 6 June. The Academic Award category recognises a member of academia who has significantly supported, encouraged, and helped students with their start-up business opportunities.
Dr Tynan commented, “I was delighted to receive the Academic Award from Teri Smith, Enterprise Ireland, and to hear how they value the academic support provided to student entrepreneurs. It is a real privilege to work with our entrepreneurial students here at SETU. I’m always impressed with their passion and the range of opportunities they are working on.”
Dr Tynan leads GROWTHhub at SETU, at the University’s Waterford campus, which supports students of all disciplines who wish to develop start-up business ideas. She works closely with awards entrants on business plan development and pitching for investment.
The Enterprise Ireland Student Entrepreneur Awards is an annual competition which offers students the opportunity to win prizes worth €35,000. It is an excellent platform to secure both mentoring and funding to progress a business idea. This year the competition was fierce, and the overall winner was Saor Water from TU Dublin.
GROWTHhub is funded by the Higher Education Authority's HCI Pillar 3, a government programme designed to meet priority skills needs by increasing collaboration between higher education and enterprise, with a focus on innovations in teaching and learning.