Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 17 January 2024
1823. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science his views on stipend increases for Higher Education Authority funded PhD researchers across all categories of HEA-funded research that is, HEA PhD, HEA extensions, and so on. [56666/23]
View answerThe Higher Education Authority (HEA) has a statutory responsibility for the effective governance and regulation of the higher education system. In support of its mandate, the HEA exercises functions in respect of allocating the moneys provided by the Oireachtas for the core activities of the higher education institutions.
It allocates over one billion euro in state funds annually to the institutions in support of their spectrum of core activities which range from teaching and learning, to research and external engagement.
This funding is allocated as a block grant from the HEA to each institution. It is the subject of the Funding the Future initiative for which I secured an additional €60m in Budget 2024, building on the increase that I secured in Budget 2023.
The HEA does not operate PhD programmes directly. Institutional scholarship supports received by PhD students from their higher education institution are funded primarily from the block grant. The internal deployment of the annual block grant allocation across the above spectrum of activities is at the discretion of each autonomous higher education institution.
