The launch date of Trinity’s new strategic plan – entitled “Community and Connection”, and approved by the College Board in November 2019 – isn’t clear yet. But the document, obtained by The University Times, came into effect on January 1st, so it’s well worth delving into to find out what Trinity is prioritising for the next five years.
Postgraduate students are one of the centrepieces of a plan that seems designed to tackle many of the internal problems the College faces, while reducing its staff–student ratio – at a cost of €29 million, according to documents seen by The University Times – is another key priority. Meanwhile, administrative and staffing issues receive arguably less attention, with fewer specific promises.
The strategic plan is a vital document – it sets Trinity’s course for the next five years, and it’s a crucial cog in a slice of its history. Here are some of its key takeaways.
Postgraduate Students
Postgraduate students are at the forefront of the strategic plan, with a focus on “enhancing” their experience and committing to “fundamentally re-evaluate and renew our approach to structures, programmes and the pedagogy of our postgraduate taught courses”. The number of postgraduate students will increase to 32 per cent of College’s student profile, and a new suite of postgraduate taught modules across schools and faculties will be implemented. A “major and systemic renewal of all aspects of doctoral education” will take place, to ensure doctoral students “receive a diversity of cutting-edge skills training to complement their research”.
The number of PhD scholarships will be increased, and College will lobby for “increased stipends for funded PhD researchers”.
Capital Investment
The university’s “financial position”, the plan says, has “improved significantly over the last five years”. Longer-term sustainability, however, will pose a challenge – “unless the Government changes its commitment to long-term funding”. Nevertheless, Trinity is still pushing ahead with ambitious plans for major capital projects – albeit ones it’s already announced, such as its Engineering, Environment and Emerging Technologies Institute (E3) and the Trinity Technology and Enterprise Campus (TTEC). College plans to do this by moving more of its eggs from the exchequer funding basket.
College has €300 million in capital projects “in the pipeline”, funded mainly by philanthropic donations and long-term financing from the European Investment Bank. The plan also includes commitments to “longer-term strategies”, including the Old Library refurbishment.
Student Numbers
College expects its student numbers to increase from just over 18,000 to 21,500 – a more modest increase than proposals mooted in the University of Limerick and University College Dublin in their recent strategic plans – as part of a strategy to “maintain the success story” of Irish universities. What stands out, however, are the figures: while Provost Patrick Prendergast has frequently floated the idea of cutting EU student numbers, the strategic plan doesn’t mention it. Instead College seeks to “enrich and expand” its global network by increasing international student numbers – a continuation of a longstanding policy.
An additional 1,000 non-EU students will be admitted to Trinity by 2025, bringing their total number to 4,000. Non-EU postgraduate students will also increase by 42 per cent. “In a national context”, the plan states, “where policy values internationalisation, we are proud that our sustained efforts to bring students from around the world to Trinity play a substantial role in the €386m that international students contribute as export income to the Irish economy”.
Sustainability
The theme of sustainability underpins many of the proposals in the strategic plan. While other universities have made headline pledges on student numbers and new buildings, Trinity’s plan argues that “in a finite world, growth and development can no longer be about moving into uninhabited territories, as if there will always be more land; today, development is about connecting”. It’s an admirable sentiment, and to be fair to Trinity most of its building plans are taking place on existing College property, but it’s unclear where the balance lies in its plans for a new Law School, for instance.
College clearly prides itself on the sustainability of some of its policies – it was quick to divest from fossil fuels, and has made efforts to reduce plastic waste – and it has committed to increasing research outputs connected to UN Sustainable Development Goals by 20 per cent by 2025. College also wants to achieve a silver Athena SWAN award by 2025 – though it was aiming to reach this target by 2023 in order to match funding stipulations.
Research
In recent months, Prendergast has argued with increasing volume that Ireland isn’t funding its research properly. The strategic plan, for its part, pledges to “stand up for research” – demanding more funding for investigator-led research and, significantly, beginning a campaign of “systematic lobbying for … increased stipends for funded PhD researchers”.
Interestingly, Trinity also pledges an “investment in staff” in the arts and humanities, an area it calls one of “Trinity’s traditional strengths”. This will offer a degree of reassurance to those who fear the College is shifting its focus towards technology-based courses, although it should be said the plan is notably vague on how it will place the arts back front and centre. For researchers, though, long starved of money and attention, College’s emphasis on academic study will come as a welcome surprise.
Student–Staff Ratio
For Trinity, reducing its student–staff ratio is a must if it’s to reverse its rankings decline. So it’s perhaps not surprising that College is launching a new strategy to reduce the gap and bring itself closer to its more illustrious counterparts in the UK and beyond. Plans to reduce the ratio, detailed in documents seen by The University Times, could cost €29 million. Logic dictates that taking this step means making one of two decisions: cutting student numbers, or increasing staff numbers.
Despite suggestions from Prendergast that College might take the former path, it doesn’t seem to have transpired that way: the strategic plan outlines a plan (explained in more detail in confidential documents brought to light by this newspaper) “to hire new and additional academic staff across the faculties in key areas to bring down the overall student ratio from its current high levels to 16:1”. But College, the plan says, is “determined to ensure” that the projected increase in student numbers “will not compromise the students’ learning and access for all students, undergraduate and postgraduate alike, to individual attention and top researchers to personal guidance and first-rate supervision”.
