We will stand up for research, its quality and impact.Goal 4
As one of Europe’s leading research universities, we place research at the heart of what we do. We are driven by a passion for research and scholarship; it shapes our teaching and is the engine of our engagement with society. This means understanding our teaching mission as research-led at all levels, ensuring that the quality of supervision offered to all students is cutting edge and reflects best practice, and implementing the values of our Research Charter and the actions of our Living Research Excellence Strategy, thereby consolidating our place as Ireland’s leading university.
We take pride in the excellence and reputation of the research and scholarship of academic staff, postdoctoral researchers and research students across all three faculties (Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences; Engineering, Mathematics and Science; and Health Sciences) and value the diversity of research and scholarship across the disciplines and in all its forms. The ground-breaking research of all members of our research community stretches across the full gambit of research activity, disciplinary and interdisciplinary, individual and collaborative, basic and applied, covering the whole spectrum of the innovation chain.
Our five Trinity Research Institutes and nineteen collaborative Research Themes have a special role within our research eco-system, advancing interdisciplinary and collaborative research, attracting and housing externally funded large scale projects, contributing to addressing the great challenges of our time and articulating the value and reach of our research to academic and non-academic audiences. Our structured Ph.D. programme seeks to provide our students with a top-quality doctoral education in which they receive excellent supervision and generic as well as discipline-specific skills training. This will ensure their research is of the highest possible quality and that they have the tools to equip them for successful careers.
A central element of our ambition to establish Dublin as a major global centre for research and innovation are our plans to develop a new Trinity @ Grand Canal Quay campus, where this €1bn research and innovation campus will become the heart of an Innovation District that will have the potential to propel Dublin into the top 20 innovation cities in the world.
Our reputation as a university flows from research, and from our firm focus on quality and impact. Over the course of this Strategic Plan, we will deliver flagship research initiatives of scale that bring together and harness the individual expertise across the university to tackle key societal challenges of our time.
To give research and its people its central place in our strategies, we will nurture and reward ingenuity, creativity and ambition, generate the resources we need, work closely with national funding bodies such as SFI, HRB and IRC, support research staff and continue to improve the research environment to make Trinity a better place in which to do research. We will defend institutional autonomy and academic freedom as the foundations on which excellence in research rests.
- Increase academic staff by approximately 200 to enhance research excellence across the university. [DR; FAHSS; FEMS; FHS]
4.1 - Target strategic hires in key areas of research excellence and impact. [LRES]
4.2 - Continuously improve our processes around hiring and retention of high calibre staff so we can ensure that we continue to attract and keep the very best researchers and research support personnel. [LRES] 4.3
- Secure philanthropic support through the Inspiring Generations Campaign for key research positions. [TDA] 4.4
- Institute a major and systemic renewal of all aspects of doctoral education in Trinity to ensure the distinctive character of that education as a holistic concept in which doctoral students receive a diversity of cutting-edge skills training to complement their research. [DGS] 4.5
- Provide structured and sustained support to Early Career Researchers such as postdoctoral and research fellows and work to integrate them more fully into the life of the campus. [LRES] 4.6
- Become a world leader in how we communicate research and its impact to our multiple audiences. [LRES; PAC] 4.7
- Host public research events around the campus or virtually, including more than 1,000 in the 2020 to 2025 period in the Trinity Long Room Hub. [TLRH] 4.8
- Systematically present policy-relevant research to decision-makers through a host of seminars and workshops. [LRES] 4.9
- Leverage Trinity’s central location in an EU capital city as a focus for social science research and outreach activities, bringing research impact and an evidence base to vital policy debates on growth, equality ethics and Ireland’s position in a changing world. [DR; FAHSS] 4.10
- Further develop and support academic consultancy across the disciplines via CONSULT Trinity. [CT] 4.11
- Lead on Open Scholarship and promote Open Access publication. [LRES; LS] 4.12
- Create a new Research Collections Study Centre in the Old Library, opening up the unique and distinct collections to postgraduate research and visiting researchers in new ways. [ES; LS] 4.13
- Put in place an Industry Advisory Board by 2021. [TR&I] 4.14
- Consolidate the position of our Trinity Research Institutes and collaborate with SFI Centres to optimise mutual opportunities through AMBER, ADAPT and CONNECT. [LRES] 4.15
- Stand up for research and its people through systematic lobbying for increased national funding for investigator-led research across the disciplines, increased stipends for funded Ph.D. researchers, a balanced research ecosystem and a more sustainable rate of overhead return on research. [LRES] 4.16
