Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 15 December 2020
71. Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science his plans to support the development of Munster Technological University following its establishment. [41758/20]
View answerThe establishment of Munster Technological University (MTU), the second technological university in the State, on 1 January 2021, is an important day for higher education in Ireland and for the South West.
The Government has a very clear ambition to expand and consolidate higher education facilities, to boost economic development across the country and to attract research funding. Technological Universities are central to delivering on this.
The establishment of the MTU will stimulate a more balanced growth of population and employment across Ireland. It will make it easier to secure foreign direct investment and provide quality jobs in the region. , MTU will be a driver of regional development, and it will help to make higher education more accessible.
Arising directly from the 2019 TURN report, which sets out the blueprint for successful TUs and their development in the State, Budget 2020 introduced a new TU Transformation Fund of €90 million to 2023. This represents a trebling of annual funding and will see will see TU oriented funding increase to over €120 million in total by 2023.
The fund will assist in key investment areas including digital infrastructure, research capacity building, change management, systems integration, governance and project management structures and information sharing to establish TUs and assist them to deliver key strategic economic and social development objectives and to respond to specific diverse regional and sectoral impacts such as Brexit.
On 7 October I announced that the Higher Education Authority, which is overseeing and administering the Fund subject to Department policy requirements, was making a total of €34.3 million in funding allocations. The funds will be disbursed in 2 tranches in Quarter 4 this year and Quarter 1 next year. MTU was allocated €8.25 million under this call.
Further allocations will be made in 2021 and 2022 with an emphasis from next year onwards on assisting inter-TU and consortia collaboration on systemic projects as TUs bed down and start to operate within their new environments and in pursuance of their missions and functions under the legislation. The Fund will also continue to assist established TUs such as MTU in their crucial formative years.
In tandem, the Department is working with sectoral stakeholders and with other Government Departments to establish the mechanisms through which TUs can become more financially independent as elaborated in the 2019 TURN report.
This includes the development of a borrowing framework which will enable TUs to access non-Exchequer funding such as the European Investment Bank provides and put them on an equal footing with the traditional universities.
It will enable TUs to build their research capacity in both applied and theoretical fields and to attract both increased research funding and to retain and attract high calibre research staff. It will involve the reconfiguration of the financing models currently in place in the publicly funded higher education sector. And it will include the development of more apposite academic career structures to enable the TUs to fulfil their individual missions and goals.
My Department is encouraging ownership by the sector of the TU development process such as can facilitate this new type of higher education institution to pursue their own individual missions and to assist the delivery of national and regional strategic priorities such as are set out, for example, in Project Ireland 2040, the National Development Plan, Future Jobs Ireland, Innovation and Horizon 2020.
