As the demand for highly-skilled workers in pharma increases, flexible and future-focused approaches to qualifications and continuous professional development will help to fill Ireland’s talent gap.
The demand for talent can be met with flexible approaches to learning and continuous professional development (CPD). Lifelong learning is a fact of any professional career, and a growing and rapidly changing pharma sector need to look both within and outside of the industry to develop and up-skill people.
“To keep Ireland’s pharma workforce at the leading edge, qualifications that feature advanced manufacturing technology and data analytics topics are critical.”
Pharmaceutical companies must work with industry and academic partners to develop education programmes that can be delivered full-time and part-time with online remote learning support. This flexibility will help those already in the industry to get to the next career level, but will also help people from outside the pharma industry transition into roles.
Qualifications must be relevant and up-to-date
To ensure that education and training are meeting the needs of the pharma industry, it’s critical to work with key industry stakeholders to develop programmes that prepare students for these high-tech jobs. Industry lecturers and insights from business can build academic programmes that align academic learning and practical applications.
Training in advanced manufacturing technologies and data science to future-proof our workforce and industry
Advanced manufacturing technologies and data science are critical areas of focus for the world’s top pharma companies. To keep Ireland’s pharma workforce at the leading edge, courses and qualifications that feature technology and data analytics topics, as well as subjects such as Lean Six Sigma, are even more important now. Managers and leaders in the industry are starting to explore how they can prepare their people to lead into the digital future of high-tech pharma manufacturing.
How Innopharma Education has helped up-skill Ireland’s pharma industry
Government funding and support have been instrumental in helping people and industry get the right skills.
Since 2010, Innopharma Education is incredibly proud to have helped thousands of people gain pharma qualifications through initiatives like Springboard+. Over 70% of these people are now employed in all regions of Ireland’s pharma industry. Without this commitment from the government, our industry talent gap would be even larger.
In addition to the Springboard+ initiative, approaches like the recently announced Human Capital Initiative will help even further in addressing this skills gap, providing Ireland with a competitive advantage in attracting pharma investment. Innopharma Education looks forward to working with industry, government and our academic partners Technical University Dublin (Tallaght Campus) and Griffith College, to map out the next phase of professional learning and skills development that will keep Ireland’s pharmaceutical industry competitive and prepared for what’s next.