Cork University Business School has a history that stretches back over 150 years, to the formation of University College Cork (UCC) as Queen’s College Cork, part of the Queen’s University Ireland, in 1845. It is committed to enhancing the knowledge and practice of business. CUBS is one of the two largest business schools in Ireland, attracting the largest amount of research income. It is committed to disciplinary strengths and organisational and international engagement, and develops the capacities of students, professionals and organisations through high-impact experiential learning and effective practice-oriented research. UCC is proud to be ranked in the top 2% of universities in the world. The beautiful university opened its gates to just 115 students in 1849. They now have a student population of over 21,000.

WIT is the major provider of higher education in the South East region of Ireland and one of the largest IOT's in Ireland. The Institute's range and scope reflect the changing needs of the southeast as well as the country as a whole.

Waterford Institute of Technology is one of the largest institutes of technology in Ireland. Established in 1970, WIT is a leader in the Irish higher education sector with regard to the provision of lifelong learning opportunities and, over the past 10 years, the Institute has successfully attracted over €139m in research funding.

Being the major provider of higher education in the South East region of Ireland, the Institute’s current full-time equivalent student cohort is in excess of 7,500 while part-time student enrolments exceed 2,500. The range of academic programmes is exceptionally extensive covering the Humanities, Health and Nursing, Science and Informatics, Engineering and Architecture, Business and Education.

Early work focussed on the nature and management of relationships between companies in the international market. More recently, this perspective has been widened to incorporate the study of complex networks within which business communities operate.

The Group’s annual conference is the largest in the world dealing specifically with marketing issues within a business-to-business context.