Shortly after I was elected
EGA President I was briefed on the saga of the University Industry Centre (UIC). This
is the building immediately adjacent to the Engineering Building and built at
the same time as part of the new Engineering Faculty complex. It was the
first innovation centre to be set up in UCD or perhaps also in Ireland in pursuit of the College's new
aims to have a more collaborative research approach between the University and
Irish Industry.
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| UCD Engineering Building on left and University Industry Centre on the right |
Both buildings were designed
by the same architect and built by the same contractor - in fact the UIC was
built first and then the main Engineering Building in the mid 1980s. The main building was
funded by Department of Education while the UIC was funded through private
donations from past graduates and their firms all pledged to UIC Educational
Trust. In fact some 450 engineers and engineering companies contributed a totally audited
figure of €966,444 in sums ranging from €1000 to over €2,500 each. These were
considerable sums donated in personal and corporate terms during the mid 80s recessionary period.
The UIC was officially opened by An Taoiseach Garret Fitzgerald on May 20th 1985 - 30 years ago next month.
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| University Industry Centre (UIC) |
This building was the
brainchild of then UCD Dean of Engineering Professor John Kelly supported by
Tom Hardiman then Chairman of the Investment Bank of Ireland and Liam Connellan
Director General of the Confederation of Irish Industry. John was also the Founder of the EGA and both Tom and Liam were later EGA Presidents. The first Director
of the UIC was Dr Pat Frain under whose guidance it went from strength to strength
establishing UCD as a third level centre of excellence in research, incubation and commercialisation.
Then in 2003 and 2005 two
separate events occurred:
1. Due to shortage of space
and the growing cross disciplinary nature of research and technology transfer
across both science and engineering UCD decided in 2003 to transfer NovaUCD
from the UIC to Merville which was enlarged with very significant industrial
sponsorship
2. Then UCD in 2005 decided to
rename the UIC building and lecture theatre to be the John Hume Centre for Global Studies and the Clinton Auditorium respectively thus removing it from the College of Engineering. There was no prior consultation with the UIC funders.
Let me now be honest, direct and frank. I actually agree with the transfer of NovaUCD in 2003 as the correct and proper thing to do at the time and its subsequent success in the new location is vindication of that. I dealt with this success in great detail in my blog earlier this week.
However the transfer of the
UIC Building from the Faculty of Engineering and its renaming without any
consultation with the UCD Engineering Graduates Association and its 450 small
and medium size funding organisations beggars belief! I was and am still
astounded that UCD could act in that way without a word to the Funders of the
building. I do accept that the then Dean of Engineering was consulted but not
the EGA or any of the Funders even the major ones.
Let me draw an apt parallel to
this. It would be akin to either Peter Sutherland or Lochlann Quinn
or Denis O'Brien waking up some morning to find that one of their relatively new buildings on
campus which they partly funded were renamed (say) the UCD School of Oriental or
Chinese Studies! That's what happened to the UIC Building without even a phone
call to the EGA or any of the Funders. Frankly it smacked of gross discourtesy
even arrogance.. The UCD
Governing Body did write to the former Dean of Engineering explaining what they
did months later only when he complained on hearing of it after the event. This issue has festered for the past 10 years to the detriment of UCD Engineering, has plagued my predecessors and I am now determined to resolve this issue if I possibly can in an amicable way.
When I first heard of this
issue I thought that perhaps the events of 2005 had been exaggerated to UCD's
disadvantage but no! In recent weeks I have spoken to practically all of the senior UIC
personnel who were connected with these events and they all now deeply regret the
manner in which all this was handled. Most of them like myself do not have a
major difficulty with the transfer of NovaUCD but all feel that it was
handled in a most clumsy manner. Many are highly embarrassed that they did nothing to stop the injustice back in 2005.
There was also a lot of ill ease
around the same time with the breakup of the Engineering Faculty into
components part in association with other faculties and schools as part of UCD restructuring. Fortunately
this was recognised as a bad mistake and corrected in 2012 with the reconstitution of the
College of Engineering and Architecture under a new Principal and Dean.
What now of the former UIC? I
simply don't know but the Clinton Auditorium remains an excellent lecture
resource. The rest of the building has a number of disparate uses. The website
for the John Hume Centre was last updated in 2009 so it's not currently in use
for that purpose either. A better future must now beckon for this building funded by UCD's engineers.
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| Clinton Auditorium |
