Trinity’s research income has risen by around 57 per cent over the last three years, reaching €110 million last year.
A graph tweeted by Provost Patrick Prendergast today showed that the College’s funding for research had increased from around €70 million at the end of 2014 to €110 million by the end of last year.
In his tweet, Prendergast called the increase “tremendous growth” and credited Trinity’s “faculty ambition” and guidance from Trinity Research and Innovation with the rise in funding.
Science Foundation Ireland and the European Commission have contributed the most money to Trinity’s research. In 2016, Science Foundation Ireland gave the College almost €45 million, while in 2017, the European Commission gave €25 million to Trinity research teams.
While research funding from the government and state agencies has increased over the last few years, income for research from the state has remained under €5 million per year.
Irish Research Council, the Health Research Board, Enterprise Ireland and the Higher Education Authority’s Programme of Research in Third Level Institutions also contributed funding in amounts of less than €10 million per year.
The College also received contributions of less than €3 million per year from Wellcome Trust, the Irish Cancer Society and the National Institutes of Health.
The success of Trinity’s research is essential for advancements in international rankings, which involve measuring the value of universities’ research by counting the citations per faculty and measuring the academic reputation of the College. This year, Trinity fell outside the top 100 in the QS world university rankings after a steady rise in the rankings over the past few years.
The European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme is the EU’s largest-ever research fund, providing €80 billion to projects across Europe over seven years. Science Foundation Ireland provides significant funding for many of the research centres in Trinity like the Centre for Future Networks and Communications (CONNECT), Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices (Crann) and Advanced Materials and Bio-engineering Research (Amber).
