President John O'Halloran joins Scale Ireland Regional Start-Up Summit

13 Feb 2026

President John O'Halloran was a member of the expert panel on Supporting Student Entrepreneurship and Spin-Outs at Third Level at the Scale Ireland Regional Start-Up Summit 2026. The panel explored ways to strengthen entrepreneurship support within third level education, and highlighted the importance of supporting student entrepreneurs and spin-outs for long term growth of Ireland's innovation ecosystem. 

The Scale Ireland Regional Start-Up Summit 2026 took place on Friday 13 February and was launched by An Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, with EU Commissioner Michael McGrath giving the closing address. The event focussed on regional start-ups and scaling companies, exploring how they can grow and scale globally. 

Professor O'Halloran took part in the expert panel on Supporting Student Entrepreneurs and Spin-outs at Third Level, chaired by Professor John Breslin, University of Galway. Joining him on the panel were Maggie Cusack, President, Munster Technological University, Siobhan Roche, Director, Research for the Economy, Research Ireland, Colm McSweeney, CEO & Co-Founder, Ailtire, Waleed Faisal,  Co-Founder & CEO, ArrayPatch Ltd. and Peter Finnegan, Head of New Ventures, Tyndall National Institute.

The panel was dedicated to how third level organisations can support student entrepreneurs and academic spin-outs. John highlighted the excellent supports available to student and graduate entrepreneurs at UCC, and shared UCC's institutional perspective on support pathways for student entrepreneurship and commercialisation.