To date Government has allocated €31 million in Exchequer co-funding to TU development consortia to assist them to advance their proposals for TU designation. The Munster Technological University (MTU) consortium of Cork IT and IT Tralee has received €6.3 million of this funding. The latest tranche of Exchequer funding administered by the Higher Education Authority (HEA) was €2m which was allocated in October 2019 in respect of the development of MTU over the 2019-2020 period.
The HEA is currently involved in a process with all technological university consortia to establish likely funding requirements in the period to 2023 under the newly established €90 million TU Transformation Fund announced on foot of the seminal TU Research Network report in November 2019.
It is understood that the HEA expects to have formal finalised requests along with updated TU financial statements from each of the relevant consortia by the end of August 2020 and will consider any future funding allocations at that time.
The recent sustainability plan for IT Tralee which was presented to my Department by the HEA in the context of Ministerial consideration of the consortium’s application for TU designation under the prescribed legislative process, included an option for a voluntary redundancy scheme which the institute is understood to be further considering. My Department has not received any correspondence to date from the institute in relation to this matter.
