The financial future of the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute (TBSI) – which houses some of Ireland’s leading researchers – has been called into question by College.
At Finance Committee last December, concerns were expressed about “ongoing financial concerns” over TBSI. The committee requested that TBSI’s Academic Director Prof Orla Hardiman and the Dean of Research Linda Doyle work with Trinity’s Chief Financial Officer Ian Matthews to address the problem. A report into the financial concerns was commissioned and due to be presented to the committee this term.
In an email statement to The University Times, Matthews described how “the concerns relate specifically to TBSI’s financial sustainability” and “its ability to financially support its own activity in the long term”.
Discussing the proposed report, Matthews said “the Academic Director of TBSI along with the Dean of Research have been working on a paper which is to come forward to the Finance Committee for consideration at a future meeting”.
Last year, The University Times reported that Trinity’s research accounts for the year up until September 2016 showed that the institute generated just over €15,000 in research funding, compared to the €66,000 it generated the previous year.
Set up in 2011 during the height of the recession, TBSI houses the Centre for Cancer Drug Discovery, the Centre for the Study of Immunology, the Centre for Medical Device Technologies and the Centre for Translational Medicine. During the first five years of the centre, staff at the institute had already produced more than 1,500 research publications, working with academics from over 50 countries.
The institute gets 49 per cent of its funding from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), with 15 per cent coming from EU Commission funding. In addition to these sources, the institute receives a significant amount of non-state funding, generating nearly €8 million between 2015 and 2016. Last December, the School of Medicine agreed to provide €250,000 for a new student space to be constructed in TBSI.
Speaking previously to The University Times, Prof Luke O’Neill, one of the centre’s leading researchers, said he hoped that stability in the country’s finances would also lead to stability in TBSI’s finances: “The hope is that now the country is a bit more financially viable, they’ll see what we’ve done in difficult times and support us even more. Because there’s great science going on here, and the Irish government would be stupid not to support it.”
