University alliance 'will create up to 40,000 jobs'
Trinity and UCD believe €650m deal can revive economy
Between 30,000 and 40,000 high-quality jobs were promised yesterday by Trinity College and UCD when they launched their joint Innovation Alliance.
The universities plan to double the number of PhD students and hope that their new Innovation Academy will lead to the creation of 300 high-value companies over the next decade.
Graduate students will be able to move from one campus to another to avail of the expertise and resources at both institutions.
The project, which will cost €650m over 10 years, will be funded from a combination of government, industry and private sources.
A new joint venture in enterprise development will provide new facilities to bring ideas, knowledge and inventions to the commercial stage.
Plan
The overall plan is built around the recently announced Smart Economy proposals issued by the Government.
Asked about the background, UCD President Dr Hugh Brady told reporters: "Let's get real here. We are in a national crisis. The Taoiseach believes in this stuff and thank goodness he does because we can't go back to agriculture, we can't go back to low-cost manufacturing and certainly we can't rely on construction long term.
"So where is the next wave of economic growth going to come from? It has to be this game, I certainly haven't heard of a compelling alternative."
Earlier, the Government's big guns -- Taoiseach Brian Cowen, Tanaiste Mary Coughlan and Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe -- were on hand to lavish praise on the project.
Mr Cowen announced that an Innovation Taskforce was being set up and chaired by Dermot McCarthy, Secretary General in the Taoiseach's office. It will report within six months of its first meeting.
The ministers were at pains to stress that there would be no special funding for the research merger -- an assurance that went a long way to reassure the other universities who were annoyed over the secrecy with which Trinity and UCD conducted the negotiations.
In a statement last night, UCC president Dr Michael Murphy said his university was heartened by the confirmation that there was no departure from the successful policies of the past decade whereby investment in higher education was made available through open competition and is internationally peer reviewed.
"Fears have been expressed that this development poses a threat to UCC and to our region," Dr Murphy said. "As long as there is a level playing field (and there are no reliable indications to the contrary) these fears are unfounded."
The other universities took a similar line. DCU President Ferdinand von Prondzynski said he welcomed and applauded the initiative.
However, he added: "We must ensure that the institutions in Ireland do not fragment, and do not come to the view that they must take competing and perhaps incompatible initiatives aimed at gaining advantage over each other, rather than in pursuit of the national interest.
"Welcome though today's announcement is, it was preceded by an element of secrecy which was not helpful and which could have sowed the seeds of serious distrust in the sector. It is our job now to overcome that," he wrote in his blog.
- John Walshe Education Editor
