THE OBJECTIVES set out by University College Dublin (UCD) and Trinity College Dublin (TCD) for their new research merger or Innovation Alliance could scarcely be more ambitious. Yesterday’s launch was told of plans to develop 300 new companies and up to 30,000 jobs as the Government’s new Innovation Taskforce, which will support the initiative, gets to work. There is talk of an enterprise “corridor’’ stretching along the four miles from Trinity to UCD. And there is even some confidence that a company on the scale of Nokia, the leading telecommunications provider, can emerge from the new alliance.
The two universities deserve some credit for their initiative. It represents a “sea change in how education and research sets up to create jobs’’, as a joint statement by UCD president Dr Hugh Brady and Trinity provost Dr John Hegarty noted yesterday. On any objective criteria, a research merger between the two largest universities in the State – located in such close proximity – makes good sense. Some 50 per cent of all PhDs in the areas of science and technology are UCD or TCD students. Both colleges already receive more than 50 per cent of available research funding. Critically, both are the only Irish universities ranked inside the world top 200. The merger gives the Irish university system a critical mass that it has lacked.
It is known that some in Government have been disappointed with the capacity of the 10-year-old Programme for Research in Third-Level Institutions (PRTLI) to result in jobs despite an investment of €1 billion. Even allowing for the long time-lag between research ideas and any subsequent employment, there has been a conspicuous lack of flagship projects where new jobs can be traced back to this investment. There are few guarantees the new alliance will be more successful. But there are reasons to be hopeful. The decision to establish the taskforce, chaired by Taoiseach Brian Cowen, will help to drive the project forward. And there is evidence here of an unprecedented level of partnership between the university system and Government at a time of national economic crisis.
The alliance hopes to attract funding of €650 million over a 10-year period from Government and the private sector. Although it may sound like a great deal, it pales when put beside the billions of dollars available to world leaders like Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US. On top of that, the new merger will have to be flexible, innovative and cost effective if it is to succeed. Some will cast doubt on the feasibility of the job targets outlined yesterday. But the State has little alternative but to build its research capacity in the fields of science and technology which will dominate the next wave of economic activity. The move to establish the alliance has fuelled understandable fears among the other universities that their research activities will be marginalised. There was a regrettable lack of transparency about the whole process. The other universities must be reassured they have a part to play also in the critical task of building Ireland’s research capacity.