2025-12-11

201. Deputy Jen Cummins asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science his plans to ensure universities have up-to-date and working equipment for the sciences. [66948/25]

What plans are there to ensure universities have up-to-date and working equipment for the sciences? We discussed this issue following Science Week. I would like to know how universities can be fully funded to ensure they have the most up-to-date equipment. We need our researchers to be working with equipment that is fit for purpose and fit for the future, particularly in the sciences.

This is a timely question. On 26 November, I launched the new INSPIRE research infrastructure programme, which provides €750 million for capital investment in research infrastructure across the State and all our HEIs. It is a landmark moment for Ireland's national research and innovation system. As I am sure the Deputy has done, I have met with various stakeholders from the higher education system, including deans of research and presidents, and members of the research community, including PhD researchers and students, as well as industry representatives and employers, who ultimately will seek to take up the ideas that emerge from research and employ the skilled graduates who flow from the institutions. INSPIRE will commence early in the new year. It has already been launched and the capital has been secured through the national development plan. It is a successor to the programme for research in third level institutions, PRTLI, which ran in the first decade of the century and was pivotal in sowing the seeds for the very strong research and innovation ecosystem that was built upon it. It withered on the vine to an extent over the past decade or so, having not been renewed since 2010 or 2011. My party promised a new initiative in this area in our manifesto and it was included in the programme for Government. I was particularly pleased to deliver it in our first year in office. Under the overall NDP capital envelope, there is some €4.55 billion for my Department, €2.45 billion of which is being allocated to research and innovation of different hues. The INSPIRE programme has a number of different layers, one of which is to refresh equipment, systems and facilities across the HEIs. That will give them the base layer of equipment they need to perform world-leading, excellent and impactful research. There is another layer for very large-ticket items that are particularly expensive and complex and which one institution may struggle to purchase and manage on its own. The intention is to have a shared infrastructure portal whereby larger items like supercomputers and wire banks can be purchased by one institution and made available to all that want to avail of it. We will have a national management system for that.

I am interested to see how that shared portal will work. I understand a lot of this equipment is incredibly expensive but, I assume, very important to have. I would like to hear more about how that will be managed. Are we ensuring our PhD and postdoctoral researchers are being fully supported to be able to work in this area? I refer specifically to those who receive stipends and I am asking whether they are adequate. There is a second element to my question. The Minister recently announced that the rent pressure zones, RPZs, will not apply to private student accommodation. I am very concerned that we will put all this equipment into universities but, at the same time, raise student accommodation prices twice in the next couple of years, out of line with what is happening in the rest of the country. I am concerned we will invest in this, which we should, but then we will not have he students or researchers coming in because student accommodation is unaffordable. I am delighted the Minister is able to put this amount of money into higher education but I am concerned that we will get all the equipment and then we may not have the students because accommodation is so expensive, particularly in urban areas.

I understand the points the Deputy raised. I will be addressing student accommodation in the response to a later question, so I will not duplicate that now. The framework on which the INSPIRE programme is built was developed in collaboration with the sector. In March of this year, I put together an expert working group made up of people from the Irish Universities Association, people with experience of the PRTLI programme and expert academics. We very much looked to the sector to see what it needed and to seek its inputs, suggestions and guidance as to what was missing and what needed to be taken into the next stage. I had some knowledge of that from previous engagements but I wanted to formally engage as part of the exercise to put the programme in place. INSPIRE is very much based upon that expert guidance and it has been very warmly welcomed by the sector. Many of the presidents have been in touch with me directly and many of them attended the recent launch. It is great to be in a position now to be able to do this.

Will the Minister explain how the sharing part will work? He said he will address student accommodation presently. I will have to step out of the Chamber but I will listen to what he says. All of these things are interlinked. When we are trying to make third level as accessible as possible, it is really important that all aspects are there to support learners but also the universities. It will put pressure on universities if all those aspects are not there. Is there a timeframe as to when the equipment will be in place? We are in the middle of an academic year and the stuff cannot be magicked out of nowhere. I am sure there are public procurement requirements and all of that. Will it be in place for the academic year of 2026-2027?

The programme will be delivered in two phases and will be managed by the Higher Education Authority in the first phase and by Research Ireland in the second. The first phase will establish a strategic baseline across the sector such that all investments are grounded in a systematic alignment with the particular university or HEI. It is a competitive fund and not a case of there being one for everyone in the audience. Funding will be awarded based upon excellence and impact, in alignment with the university. Universities are encouraged to put together their own proposals and they will be considered by an expert panel. That panel will be entirely independent and I will not have an involvement in it. The proposals will be peer-reviewed by expert academics who probably will be external to the country. That is how it was done in PRTLI before and it is best practice internationally. In terms of the shared infrastructure, the way it is envisaged to work is this. They are large items with a minimum €500,000 price tag; some may be multiples of that, depending on the item. Again, it would be a competitive call. All universities, effectively, would be invited in to put forward their proposals. There would be a competitive process that would then go into a central portal, which other universities can share it from.