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OllscÉala - March 2009

President's Message - Ollscéala - March 2009

The shape of the future

Welcome to the first edition of Ollscéala for 2009. Just three months in and 2009 is already proving to be a highly significant year for the Higher Education sector. As I write, Higher Education is going through a period of unprecedented change and there is no doubt that it will emerge a radically different sector over the next couple of years.

Higher Education Strategy Group

You will no doubt be aware that the Minister for Education and Science, Batt O’Keefe TD, has established a Higher Education Strategy Group to develop a new national strategy for Higher Education. The Strategy Group will examine how Ireland can become more innovative in creating high-knowledge jobs that can help the country's economic renewal. The new strategy will set out the blueprint for the sector over the next two decades.

A network of collaborating institutions

The Group, which is expected to have completed its work by the end of the year, will almost certainly recommend some form of rationalisation within the sector. In the current economic climate, this is only to be expected. Ireland cannot fund the creation of seven world-class Universities each of which seeks excellence in every discipline. It can, and in my view must, create a network of collaborating institutions each of which develops appropriate priority areas and spells out how it will develop and sustain excellence in them. These priority areas will also need to reflect the needs of stakeholders, including industrial partners, in each University’s region.

Our Universities and Institutes of Technology will need to work together to stimulate the growth in innovation and enterprise necessary to create the Smart Economy which is critical to Ireland’s long-term economic recovery. This ability to collaborate will be essential to the future development of the sector. In fact, NUI Galway is currently working closely with Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology and with the other Institutes of Technology in the LÍONRA network, to establish a collaborative research and innovation partnership, with a particular focus on a coordinated approach to technology transfer and commercialisation, as part of our PRTLI 5 submission.

Radical partnerships

Indeed, collaboration is fast becoming part of the culture at third-level. The recent announcement of a new Innovation Alliance between TCD and UCD is a radical partnership which will undoubtedly become a blueprint for further, similar collaborations between institutions across the country.

At NUI Galway, we are no strangers to such collaborations, as many of our successfully funded research projects have been based on partnerships with other organisations and institutions. I am pleased to report we are currently putting together an extremely robust and competitive submission for the PRTLI 5 round of funding and our proposals for this competition include partnerships with all of the Universities on the island of Ireland.

The aim must be to prioritise research and development areas to achieve concentration and critical mass across our campuses.One approach is to create a network of geographically dispersed collaborating institutions each of which aspires to excellence in particular and complementary areas of teaching and research, which respond to the social, cultural and economic needs of stakeholders.

Excellence on a global scale

It is also important to bear in mind that a university cannot effectively meet the needs of its very many stakeholders unless it operates at a level of excellence on a global scale. Anything less is a disservice to our industrial partners who must compete in a global market.

Global companies will continue to locate their high-end research and development projects in Ireland only if the calibre of our R&D and our commitment to particular technologies can be sustained. Smith & Nephew’s establishment of an R&D collaboration for the development of groundbreaking treatments for bone and joint disease at the Regenerative Medical Institute at NUI Galway, is an example of this move toward high-end research by our multi-national partners.

Selection and rationalisation

Of course, the selection of priority themes in line with the changing needs of Irish society presents its own challenges for each institution. Selection implies rationalisation and reduced resources for some disciplines in individual institutions: a willingness to recognise that another institution occupies the high ground in those areas and to encourage colleagues to collaborate and students to work across institutions. And, of course, one must take account of evolution, competition and change. Nobody and no organisation has a claim on resources. Resources are earned and sustained by focus and consistent achievement.

Only by working together as a sector will we fulfil our obligation to create the Smart Economy so essential to Ireland’s economic recovery. I am confident that NUI Galway will come through the challenges of the next few years and emerge as a more flexible, energised institution, clearly focused on our strategic objectives and in a strong position to compete on a national and international stage.

Beir bua agus beannacht,

James J. Browne Ph.D.,D.Sc.,MRIA,C.Eng.

Uachtarán - President

For Irish Version - click 'Leagan Gaeilge' above

Oifig an Uachtaráin
This page was last updated Tuesday, April 28, 2009