Trinity marks life-long learning milestone as 1,000 complete micro-credentials

Trinity College Dublin is celebrating a life-long learning milestone as 1,000 learners – who are mainly full-time employees whose ages range from 21 to 67 - have now completed a micro-credentials course at the university.  

Launched in the 2021/2022 academic year, micro-credentials are small, focused courses, lasting six to 12 weeks, allowing for in-depth learning in a specific area or topic at postgraduate level.   

Each micro-credential offers a career and knowledge growth opportunity and a direct impact in the workplace. While they are standalone offerings, there will be opportunities in the future to stack them towards specified Trinity awards. 

Trinity currently offers 37 different micro-credentials, with a new one in Perinatal Mental Health due to start in January 2026.  Areas involved at Trinity include Nursing and Midwifery, Business, Engineering, Social Work and Social Policy, Medicine, Psychology, Natural Science and Trinity Innovation.   

• Lorena Pirrera (pictured above, centre) , Senior ERM and ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) Program Manager at Fenergo, said she hugely enjoyed her course on “Creating Value with ESG”. “It’s already making a difference in how I approach my work and in how I present new complex ESG topics to leadership, to gain their buy-in".  
• Jurgen Petrus Theunissen (pictured above on right), Settlements Manager at Teybridge Capital (Europe), said he was surprised at how well and concisely his course (Finance for non-finance executives) was delivered. “You are never too old to return to learning for the betterment of yourself,” he said. “Take the risk, you never know what you will get out of it until you try."
• Damien Walsh (pictured above on left),  Director of Engineering, New Product Development at Onsemi, completed a course in Driving Performance with AI and Analytics. “The microcred format really appealed to me with a busy work and personal life. It allowed me to select a module and was directly relevant to my current role and learning objectives. ... It has also re-ignited my appetite for lifelong learning. I am currently on my third microcred.” 

Martine Smith, Dean of Graduate Studies at Trinity (above second from right) said she was delighted with the success of these innovative routes to learning. “We’ve had great feedback from learners with some coming back to take a second micro-credential. Since many of our micro-credential learners have not studied at postgraduate level before, some have used this as an opportunity to test the water for a bigger commitment like a post graduate diploma or masters.”  

Michael Flynn, Director of Executive Education at Trinity (above right), said: “It’s amazing to be able to celebrate our 1,000th micro-credentials student at Trinity. We are proud of the range of micro-credentials we now offer at Trinity across a broad range of subject areas and of the impact that they are clearly having on people’s lives and careers.”  

Trinity is a partner in the Irish Universities Association national MicroCreds project funded under the HEA's Human Capital Initiative (HCI) and collaborates with partner universities to share knowledge and build awareness via the microcreds.ie platform. A HCI learner fee subsidy is currently available offering fee funding of between 50% and 80% for eligible applicants. 

More on Trinity’s range of microcreds here.