I’m delighted to be here this afternoon to launch your strategic plan for the next five years.
It is clear to all of us here today, and to anyone who has had the privilege to attend this university that the light of learning at Trinity burns as brightly in the time of this still-young Republic as ever it did in the days of Banrion Eilis a hAon.
And with this strategic plan we see why.
It’s a credit to you, Dr Patrick Prendergast, and your staff.
The intrinsic strength of a university lies in its academic capacity to generate, examine and transmit knowledge, yes. But even more crucially, thought.
And thought is the very essence of this strategic plan, with its emphasis on academic excellence and performance and in creating the kind of living partnerships and networks that will allow the university to maximise its international potential.
This outward looking stance is an important element of the Government’s National Strategy for Higher Education to 2030 which sets out a comprehensive roadmap for reform of the higher education system.
We want the education system to become more performance oriented, more flexible and responsive while its diversity in terms of mission is retained and enhanced.
This plan reflects those objectives.
I’m especially delighted that your plan not only recognises and elevates the need to give more and wider public access to the university it wants to see under-represented groups enrolled on under-graduate courses increase to a quarter in 2019.
The delivery of more flexible post graduate courses and continuous professional development courses will also help to increase student participation.
Building knowledge alliances
The two significant independent indicators of graduate employability are
- participation in work placement and
- employer input into programme design and review.
The focus Trinity has on engaging and developing strong mutual partnerships with enterprise, both nationally and globally, and building knowledge alliances between employers and the academic community is critical. This will ensure that your graduates will be highly sought-after, skilled, confident and above all employable.
Without doubt, the relationship between higher education institutions and enterprise is of vital importance for economic stability, growth and sustainability for the future.
I understand that that Trinity’s five-year strategy will make other direct contributions to our economic recovery through, for example, the hundreds of jobs that will be directly created from the capital investment of €70 million in your new Business School, the E3 Institute for Engineering, Energy and the Environment and The Cancer Institute at St James’s Hospital.
I am also delighted to see that over the lifetime of your strategic plan …by increasing the number of students enrolled from outside the EU from 7.8% of total student numbers in 2012 to 18% in 2019…you will build a sense of ‘global community’. Something so valuable to Trinity’s standing.
Innovation
I would like to congratulate you on the 500th invention disclosure at a special event showcasing the impact of some key innovations.
Charting Trinity’s history of inventions to the present day, they range from a treatment protecting the body’s neurons, to the globally transformative nicotine patch to the landmark 500th invention disclosure that protects the earth from space debris. These inventions have led to the creation of 42 new campus companies and the licensing of 126 technologies to industry in the last 7 years.
I fully support your ambitious target of supporting the creation of more than 160 start-up companies over the next three years.
I understand that Trinity recently established a new Office of Corporate Partnership and Knowledge Exchange, bringing together under one roof all the functions necessary to support research collaboration and commercialisation. It is providing a single interface for companies seeking to interact with Trinity researchers and infrastructure.
Of course, another crucial part of our recovery as a society will lie in ensuring that there are new generations of leaders and problem solvers who will help us face challenges that may not even yet be on our horizon, from business to education, from the creative arts to politics. We will be asking them to challenge the old while still preserving what is good as they lead our society onward.
I think that in essence this is the most important role for a leading university such as Trinity, and the most critical aspect of your strategic plan.
Conclusion
I have every confidence that TCD will achieve the aspirations laid out in their Plan, that so strongly echo the ambitions for the kind of outward facing system recommended by the Government’s National Strategy for Higher Education.
Your plan is crystal clear, like the ancient waters of the holy well out there in Sráid Thobar Phadraig, the more ‘new-fangled’ Nassau Street.
It will brighten your vision and that of all who come to study here. I wish you success, satisfaction, and happiness as it does.
ENDS