Inaugural Lecture by President of UCD, Professor Andrew J Deeks

Last week I was invited to the Inaugural Lecture at the start of Professor Andrew Deeks 10 year term as UCD President. He also published his new Strategy 2015 - 2020.

Andrew is the first ‘non Irish’ President of UCD since John Henry Newman was Founder and Rector in 1854. Newman only spent 4 years as Rector but was a noted educationalist and writer on the role of a university in society. From humble beginnings in UCD he foresaw 'a flourishing University, which for a while had to struggle with fortune, but which, when its first founders and servants were dead and gone, had successes far exceeding their anxieties'.

The passage of time indeed proved Newman right and Andrew Deeks is rightly proud of what UCD has achieved but as he is very ambitious for UCD he states 'we cannot rest on our laurels'. To remain competitive in every sense the new strategy calls for a new genre of interconnection globally at academic level to match the communication that exists between continents, countries and economies.

UCD Campus

Our mission is to flourish in Ireland and in the world 'through the excellence and impact of our research and scholarship'. Our values are excellence, integrity, collegiality, engagement and diversity, the strategy states ‘Our aim must be truly global in our international reach, in our engagement with all levels of society and with all regions of the world and in the quality and extent of our campus and facilities. We will bring the world to Ireland and Ireland to the world’.  This will all be achieved using 10 key objectives and 6 strategic objectives.

In his very entertaining Inaugural Address, Professor Deeks traced the voyage of discovery of mankind from the Industrial Revolution into the current age of The Internet of Things to show the need for interconnecting academic institutions geographically and virtually. This will result in maximum research and innovation impact.

He made a powerful association that made the new UCD Strategy not only an agenda for his term as President but an essential for UCD to become the global world class university he wants UCD to be. If we all pull together around this new Strategy or Growth Engine in UCD I'm sure we will succeed in raising our ambitions to compete with the best on the world stage.

Certainly we in the UCD EGA will continue our current strategy of raising our national and international profile in the issues most concerning the Irish Nation - Job Creation, Austerity, Food, Water, Energy, Economic Recovery, Diaspora, Farming and Gender. These have been the economic and social themes of our principal public events in the past two years. We hope to continue to discuss and debate the burning issues of the day in the years ahead and in that way play our part in ensuring the place of UCD as a creative innovation engine of growth in Irish and international society.

UCD President, Prof. Andrew J Deeks and Minister for Education & Skills, Jan O'Sullivan TD