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The Kane Science Building at UCC and the O’Brien Centre for Science at UCD will each receive €25m to improve facilities.
The Government is pumping €100m into four higher education projects, including funding for the development and refurbishment of two science buildings.
University College Cork’s (UCC) Kane Science Building will be redeveloped and the third phase of the O’Brien Centre for Science at University College Dublin (UCD) will be funded. In 2021, UCD secured a large loan with European Investment Bank to support plans for the expansion of its Belfield campus. These plans included the third phase of the O’Brien Centre for Science.
The other two projects to receive funding are Trinity College Dublin’s (TCD) South Renewal Project and University of Limerick’s Future UL Education initiative.
The latter project’s aim is to boost recognition of UL as a research-led institution. It will involve a refurbishment of the campus’ main building, Limerick Live95 reported.
TCD’s South Renewal Project includes a new five-storey building and refurbishment of other buildings on its Summer Hill campus.
All four plans are being funded under the Government’s Project Ireland 2040 scheme. They will each receive €25m under the co-funded Higher Education Strategic Infrastructure Fund Round two.
Commenting on the investment, Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science Simon Harris, TD, said it was part of the Government’s plan to continue to fund “significant investment into higher education”.
“Over the course of the last two and a half years, capital funding for higher education has been provided in the amount of €430m.”
Harris said that the co-funded approach in this particular fund “maximises the potential for exchequer funding to attract other sources of capital investment in the sector”.
He said that as well as Government investment, other sources of investment would provide a “collaborative approach” towards funding the higher education sector.
According to Harris, the funding will support the creation of approximately 21,000 square metres of new build and more than 51,000 meters of reimagined and refurbished space.
Once completed, the buildings will have capacity to support several thousand student places in higher education institutions, across STEM, social sciences and other multidisciplinary areas.
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