The Trinity Long Room Hub, TCD’s Arts and Humanities Research Institute
Another interesting example is in the
telecommunications area with a multi-disciplinary,
multi-university consortium, the Centre for
Telecommunications Value-Chain Research
(CTVR), headed by Engineer, Associate Professor
Linda Doyle. It has a close partnership with Lucent
Technologies which set up in Ireland specifically to
engage in this type of research.
Across the social sciences and humanities there
are a number of very unusual developments that
bode well for Ireland’s future. One very large scale
initiative is the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing
headed by Gerontologist Professor Rose-Anne
Kenny, which brings together medics, geneticists,
social scientists, engineers and statisticians in
several universities and also partners with Intel and
its technology capability.
These examples give a flavour of the quality and
scale that characterises Irish research, as well as
the collaborative and partnership approach taken.
Along with research, Trinity has been developing
its intellectual property policy for some time and
now has an industry-friendly, open innovation
policy that has seen the number of quality patents,
the number of engagements with industry, and
the number of spin-off companies all increase.
As part of the drive to increase effectiveness in
business development, Trinity has joined with UCD
in an Innovation Alliance to pool efforts in the
deployment of intellectual property for job creation
and to instill a stronger sense of entrepreneurship
and innovation in all of our students. The Alliance
is a landmark development in Irish higher education.
But Trinity is pushing the concept of connections
even further. I have been spearheading a new
initiative in the Creative Arts, Technologies
and Culture. This is connecting the University
64
and the city’s nearby high concentration of
cultural and performing institutions by the joint
development of the practitioner aspect of the arts
and humanities. It is also connecting the sciences
and the arts in a special way, especially in the area
of digital media with its strengths in engineering
and computer science. A consortium of poets,
dramatists, composers, computer scientists,
engineers, economists, linguists and historians,
has been plotting a city centre porous network of
education, scholarship, performance, exhibition,
and job creation, with Trinity as the catalyst. It
has the potential to be an outstanding example of
creative connectivity on the world stage. The new
National Academy of Dramatic Art, the Lir, and the
Oscar Wilde Centre for Irish writing are important
elements of this initiative and the newly built
landmark building, the Trinity Long Room Hub,
will be the nerve centre of digital humanities and
international connectivity.
Finally, located at the Pearse Street entrance to the
campus is perhaps one of the most unexpectedly
successful initiatives in the country, the Science
Gallery, of which I am very proud. The Science
Gallery is a conceptually new space to interface
the scientist and the citizen through the medium
of the arts, including exhibitions, talks, encounters
of all types, and good coffee. It is quite unique as a
concept and in two years over 700,000 people have
visited. It is aimed at young people in the 15-25 year
old bracket, an age when decisions to pursue or drop
science are taken.
The Science Gallery and all the other extraordinary
developments at Trinity College Dublin are
worth visiting. They represent a university that
continues to draw on its rich tradition of innovation
to set the pace for change locally, nationally and
internationally.