€25 million injection to Maynooth University campus project

Maynooth University has today welcomed a capital grant of €25 million from Government for a major new building project to support the University’s rapidly growing student population.
The Minister for Education and Skills, Joe McHugh, and the Minister of State for Higher Education Mary Mitchell O’Connor, today announced a €25 million contribution from the Higher Education Strategic Infrastructure Fund (HESIF), which will, along with €32 million in university and EIB funds, deliver a landmark €57 million campus project. 
The project comprises a new 10,554 m2 academic building, to open in late 2020. This forms part of a wider plan to modernise and expand a further 5,670 m2 of the existing Arts and Sciences buildings, for completion by 2021.
Welcoming the announcement, Professor Philip Nolan, President of Maynooth University, said: “This is landmark development project designed to keep pace with rapidly growing student numbers in the country’s fastest growing region, and to support the research and innovation skills needed to face fundamental societal challenges.”
Prof Nolan continued: “Maynooth University has seen significant growth in our student enrolment, and the output of skilled graduates across a range of disciplines is vital to balanced regional and national economic development, and critical in addressing the major challenges of the twenty-first century. This funding will provide much-needed physical infrastructure that will allow Maynooth University to play a vital role in the national context to respond to these challenges.”
Maynooth University is Ireland’s fastest growing university. While serving students from all corners of Ireland and internationally, MU has played a particularly important role in meeting the rapidly growing demographic demand for higher education in the mid-east, midlands and the western edge of the Dublin metropolitan area.
Formally established as an autonomous university in 1997, Maynooth has tripled its enrolment to almost 13,000 students from at least 90 countries, and is ranked among the top 50 global universities under 50 years old in the Times Higher Education (THE) Young University Rankings. 
Prof Nolan concluded: “This infrastructural project will further support Maynooth University’s research and innovation in areas vital to economic, social and environmental challenges, including climate science, environmental science, artificial intelligence, regional and urban planning, smart cities, the future of work, as well as services innovation, public policy and social change. We welcome this important announcement from Government and its recognition of the important role Maynooth University plays in these areas of national and international significance.”

NUI Galway has secured €15 million in funding under the Higher Education Strategic Infrastructural Fund (HESIF) - Project Ireland 2040, for the redevelopment of the James Hardiman Library.
The project - the new Library and Learning Commons - will redevelop, reconceptualise and fundamentally transform the James Hardiman Library building at NUI Galway in order to embrace, promote and support evolving approaches to teaching and learning.
Welcoming the announcement, Professor Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh, President of NUI Galway said: "I am delighted to welcome this very substantial support for NUI Galway’s library redevelopment which is a strong endorsement for teaching and learning at this University. This development will have a distinctively transformative impact on the learning experience of our students at NUI Galway.
“Renewing higher education for the needs of our time and our place demands new types of space that allow deeper forms of engagement and new forms of connection between teaching, learning, research, and scholarship. This investment provides an opportunity to reconceive the library as an inclusive, accessible centre for active learning, a place of shared curiosity and for the co-development of knowledge and understanding in the world and for the world. I would like to thank the Department and the HEA for acknowledging our vision for HE in Ireland and in particular here in the west.
“This is great news for NUI Galway, as well as for our broader University community. Today's announcement is a clear signal of our ambition for a new chapter in our University’s proud history.”
John Cox, University Librarian, commented: “The transformed Library will be an inspirational, welcoming, space for learning and creativity, facilitating collaborative discovery and interdisciplinary engagement, with access to the world’s knowledge via a comprehensive digital library.”

The James Hardiman Library, named after the first librarian of the university, is the main library for NUI Galway and is located at the heart of the campus. It contains over 700,000 volumes in addition to a comprehensive digital library, including access to more than 70,000 electronic journal titles. The library also has an extensive collection of almost 400 archives including those of Conradh na Gaeilge, John McGahern and Mary Robinson. Recent innovations include the digitisation of the archives of the Abbey Theatre and Gate Theatre and the development of an internationally recognised Library Makerspace.