TCD: research cuts will cost 1,000 jobs

Trinity College Dublin (TCD) is predicting that its new funding for research will collapse in the next five years, cutting spending on research by three quarters and leading to the loss of almost 1,000 research positions.

A confidential document being prepared by the college also predicts that the combined fall in research staff and students could affect the college’s standing in international rankings.

The massive fall-offs are predicted in a draft of an internal college report which has been seen by The Sunday Business Post.

The report was compiled after consultation by key college bodies, analysis of budgets and discussions with University College, Dublin.

TCD has already seen a 50 per cent fall in the value of grants last year and since.

The report predicts that funding will fall by 76 per cent, from over €103 million in the bumper year of 2008/09 to just €24.3 million in 2014/15.

This will lead to huge drops in the number of students and postdoctoral staff pursuing research - a key component of the government’s ‘‘smart economy’’ strategy.

The report estimates that the numbers of post-doctoral research staff will fall by 300 (67 per cent),while postgraduate research student numbers will fall by 660,or 33 per cent, by the academic year 2015/16.

The fall-off in postgraduate research students would correspond with a drop in fee income of €3.95 million over the five-year period.

This figure was calculated assuming that around 65 per cent of all PhD student fees are paid through a research grant, while UCD’s figures were based on 80 per cent.

The internal document said that the decrease in the research staff and students could have a ‘‘significant impact’’ on TCD’s international rankings.

This is because some of the data sets required by the Times Higher Education world rankings include its number of researchonly staff and the number of doctorate students admitted, including the proportion funded by competitive research scholarships.

Last week, the innovation minister, Conor Lenihan, criticised the Department of Finance for indiscriminately cutting budgets for research.

‘‘The serious point here is you cannot have a smart economy without a sustained investment in research and development," he said.

Funding for university research comes from a variety of sources, of which the largest are the Higher Education Authority and Science Foundation Ireland. Grants are also available from Enterprise Ireland, t he IDA, Teagasc and from private sources.