Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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123. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his plans to increase research and development funding in the coming years following the establishment of the Atlantic Technological University in order to raise wages, productivity and job opportunities in the north-west; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25289/22]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Appropriately enabled, TUs will significantly enhance progress towards national priorities in the areas of access to higher education, research-informed teaching and learning, research capacity building, supporting enterprise, skills retention and creation, fostering innovation and knowledge transfer and enhancing regional development.

In line with the recommendations of the reports from the high level Technological Universities Research Network group in 2019 and the Recurrent Funding Allocation Model and as part of the approach towards sustainability of future funding, the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science and the HEA are pursuing the development of a universal costing model for all HEIs and an updated recurrent funding distribution model. This would see TUs and traditional universities report on costs and access funding on a more comparable basis including access to recurrent research oriented funding. In addition to the current Transformation Fund of €30 million provided annually since 2020, an additional €40 million is being allocated from 2022 to TU education and training reforms under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. The Department is also seeking additional support for almost €84 million funding investment in TU oriented regional research development and integration programmes under the ERDF Co-Funded Regional Programmes 2021-2027.