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Ministers also Announce Ring-fenced Funding for Multi Campus Institutions

The Minister for Education and Skills Richard Bruton, and the Minister of State for Higher Education, Mary Mitchell O’Connor, launched the new Higher Education and Innovation Fund for which up to €5m is available for investment in 2018. The innovation fund is part of the additional €100m which the government are investing in higher education since 2016.

Funding will be allocated on a competitive basis with the best proposals being awarded funding. Applications are sought in four areas which have been prioritised in 2018:

• The support of innovation, transformation and quality improvement in teaching and student learning outcomes
• The support of student retention and progression in individual institutions and through institutional collaboration
• Innovation and transformation in flexible, distance and e-learning opportunities and programmes
• Measures to support Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) 

In launching the Innovation and Transformation Fund Minister Bruton highlighted the importance of innovation for the education system:

We are aiming to have the best education and training system in Europe by 2026. Key to this ambition is the need to support innovation throughout the education system. On being appointed Minister for Education and Skills, I said I would introduce new innovation and performance-based funding mechanisms. In 2018 through the new Innovation Fund we are prioritising four key areas for funding which include improving student learning outcomes, flexible learning opportunities, student progression, and the recognition of prior learning.

The proposals will be independently assessed by an international expert panel and funding will be allocated to the successful projects later this year. The application process is now open and details of submission deadlines are available on the website of the Higher Education Authority at http://hea.ie/funding-calls/

The Ministers also opened the process by which higher education institutions can apply for additional funding for operating on a multi-campus basis. Minister Mitchell O’Connor indicated:

Today we are inviting higher education institutions that have more than one campus and that meet a set of specific criteria to apply for additional funding of €250,000 per annum per institution. This funding is intended to recognise the challenges faced by operating in more than one campus, over a wide geographical area, and the funding implications that this presents. This is in accordance with a recommendation in the review of the higher education funding allocation model that I published in January of this year.

The criteria that institutions must satisfy in order to receive the €250,000 additional funding are available here: http://hea.ie/funding-calls/