Trinity announces €70m Business School and Innovation Hub to drive culture of job creation
Posted on: 08 November 2013
- University uses first Trinity Global Graduate Forum to reveal radical new build plan
- Work to begin on campus next summer with completion expected in 2017
Trinity College Dublin announced plans today for a €70 million project involving a new Trinity School of Business, co-located with an Innovation and Entrepreneurship Hub, as part of efforts to drive a culture of job creation across the campus and in Dublin city centre.
The project will support a growing entrepreneurial culture among Trinity’s students and faculties, drive job creation in the city centre, and help position Dublin as global node for innovation and start-up enterprises.
The Provost of Trinity, Dr Patrick Prendergast, made the announcement at the Trinity Global Graduate Forum (TGGF) which drew over 100 of the university’s most successful alumni from across the world to Dublin this weekend.
The two-day forum, held in Trinity, is the first time any university has invited its global graduates back to formulate plans to tackle some of the major challenges facing modern higher education, including funding, reputation, growth, technology and education.
The graduates are coming from 16 countries representing 19 professions.
Dr Prendergast said the new Trinity School of Business showed the university was committed to investing in innovation and entrepreneurship which would be critical in enabling the development of Ireland’s society and the economy.
‘We want the message to go out to students in Ireland and globally that Trinity is a university that educates and motivates students to create jobs, as well as to get them,’ said Dr Prendergast. ‘Working together, higher education institutions and Government can create the environment that draws the research and enterprise communities into partnerships, promoting innovation, entrepreneurship, and new business creation,’ he said.
It is expected that the sod will be turned on the new project next summer and it will be completed in 2017. The Trinity School of Business, located on the technology side of the campus along Pearse Street, Dublin, will offer a full range of business-related programmes at undergraduate, postgraduate and executive education levels as part of a new approach to entrepreneurship and innovation training for the whole university.
The new Entrepreneurship and Innovation Hub, co-located with the Trinity School of Business, will provide space for prototyping and company incubation projects and academic and administrative offices.
The overall development, spanning some 13,000 square metres with six storeys above ground and three below, will include a 600-seat auditorium, restaurant spaces for 200 people, public space where students can meet and ideas exchange, ‘smart’ classrooms with the latest digital technology, and a rooftop conference room.
Trinity has raised significant funding towards the cost of the project from philanthropic sources, and plans to raise more, privately and publicly, are well advanced. Other revenue sources include self-generated income from fee-paying business programmes, income from the sale of off-campus office space and the leasing of retail units and student apartments.
Dr Jim Quinn, Head of the School of Business, said the development would build on Trinity’s tradition of providing business education in the city centre which stretches back to 1925.
‘This project will reinforce Trinity’s uniquely integrated approach to business education. We want to create an environment in which all graduates, irrespective of discipline, can acquire the necessary leadership, organisational and management skills to create new companies and reinvigorate established ones,’ said Dr Quinn.
The new project will connect the historic and modern ends of Trinity’s campus along the Pearse Street axis, offering creative and learning space to the whole university under the common theme of entrepreneurship and innovation.
‘This can be the physical home of Ireland’s new generation of job creators,’ said Seán Melly, Chairman of the Business School Advisory Board and Managing Director of Powerscourt Capital Partners, who is a Trinity graduate and attended TGGF. ‘By imbuing a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship across campus, Trinity is showing leadership in the national economic recovery effort. Employers want to work with universities to help foster the conditions for job creation. That partnership, if it is supported by Government, will help Ireland renew our society and economy,’ he said.
The announcement was made at the Trinity Global Graduate Forum which drew senior executives from some of the world’s largest employers to discuss the development of the university and the country.
‘The TGGF has shown that Trinity is at a crossroads. Now in our fifth century, Trinity faces a future that will fuse our traditional strengths in education and research with innovation and entrepreneurship in a world of relentless change. As leaders in their fields, our alumni know that Ireland can only meet this challenge by nurturing talent and creating opportunity. Our graduates have a stake in the future of our university. By extension, they have a stake in the future of the country because Trinity believes it can play a key role in creating a vibrant and successful society and economy,’ said Dr Prendergast.
ENDS
About Trinity
Founded in 1592, Trinity is at the nexus of tradition and innovation, offering undergraduate and postgraduate programmes across 24 schools and three faculties: arts, humanities, and social sciences; engineering, maths and science; and health sciences. Spread across 50 acres in Dublin city centre, Trinity’s 17,000-strong student body comes from all 32 counties in Ireland and 16% of students come from outside the country. Of those, 40% are from outside the European Union, making Trinity’s campus cosmopolitan and bustling, with a focus on diversity. Home to Nobel prize-winners such as scientist Ernest Walton and writer Samuel Beckett, Trinity is known for intellectual rigour, academic excellence and research-led teaching. The university draws visitors from across the world to its historic campus each year, including to the Book of Kells and Science Gallery which capture the university’s connection to both old and new. Ranked 61 in the world in the latest QS World Rankings, Trinity accounts for one-fifth of all spin-out companies from Irish higher education institutions, helping to turn Ireland into an innovation-intensive, high-productivity economy. Trinity has some 100,000 alumni spread across the world.