Finn Keyes | Current Affairs Editor
Trinity’s new Strategy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship was launched yesterday by the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton TD. The strategy seeks to establish a new ‘creative quarter’ through a €70 million building project to extend from Pearse Street to Grand Canal Basin. The plan will also see 30 new jobs in the Business department as well as a new “education model that promotes creativity and innovation” and “collaboration between enterprise and academia”.
The launch yesterday morning also sought to emphasise Trinity’s existing success in the area and was attended by the co-founders of the FoodCloud project, a successful and high profile start-up created by Trinity students Alex Sloan and Emma Mooney. The College aims to have supported the creation of 48 start-up companies by the end of 2014, with that figure rising to 55 by the end of 2015, and to 58 by the end of 2016, a total of 161 in 3 years. Since 2009, Trinity has averaged seven new spin-out companies annually and 20 per cent of all Irish spin-out companies now stem from this campus.
The bulk of investment will be going into development of a new €70 million Trinity School of Business which will include an ‘Innovation and Entrepreneurship Hub’, which will provide space for prototyping and company incubation projects and academic and administrative offices. The building will span 13,000 square metres with a 600 seat auditorium, a 200 seat student restaurant and ‘smart’ classrooms with the latest in digital technology. Work is to start next summer with a provisional completion date of 2017. There is also to be new ‘Office of Corporate Partnership and Knowledge Transfer’, designed to “open Trinity to industry and business, and enabling the co-creation of intellectual property and spin-out companies”.
The Provost, Dr. Patrick Prendergast welcomed the development. “To be successful, Irish society must encourage and develop all its entrepreneurial talents. The new strategy promotes creativity and innovation as an integral part of the Trinity education. Our strategy will harness the creative, disruptive promise of innovation for Dublin and for the country.”
The Minister emphasised the importance of the plan in the context of the wider economy. “Trinity can help support the growth of entrepreneurship across the economy, helping to turn good ideas into good jobs.”
