UCD's bold and ambitious vision for its future economic well-being should be applauded, writes Kieran McGowan.

On this day last week it was my privilege to chair the meeting of the UCD Governing Authority at which UCD President Dr Hugh Brady presented the UCD Strategic Plan 2005-08.

While it is easy to see this as a routine, statute-driven event, I believe the publication of this plan will come to be seen as a significant moment in Irish higher education. The bold and ambitious vision of Hugh Brady and his colleagues bodes well for our future social and economic well-being. The courage shown by UCD in "going for it" instead of producing a strategy full of more traditional language such as "on the one hand - on the other hand", peppered with conditionals and insulated from any real measures of success, is to be heartily commended.

It has to be said, however, that the context into which this plan emerges is not a wholly propitious one. The recent Budget displays evidence of an unfortunate and threatening disconnection in our thinking on planning for future success in industrial and educational sectors.

If some of what follows seems a criticism of political leaders, it is something that I do reluctantly as I have come to admire and respect the courage and spirit of our politicians in their frequent thankless acts of patriotism, in the best sense of the term.

I have always believed economic development and educational excellence, from primary to university education, as being indissolubly linked. I may have even flattered myself to think there was some evidence of this view being more widely held when I was given the honour of being invited to chair the UCD Governing Authority.

Consequently, there was a certain personal edge to the disappointment I felt with the recent Budget - a double-edge in fact; first in the simple fact of the failure to appreciate the aforementioned link between education and development; second, in the bald fact that by failing to support reforming university presidents, solace is inevitably given to the minority of cynics who make that work of reform more difficult by declaring it undesirable, unnecessary, unachievable or all of the above.

I should say, because I know this to be indubitable from years of experience, that when talking about the link between education and economic advancement, I am not just talking about education in the areas of business or technical subjects, though the service provided by universities in these arenas is excellent.

Some of the most innovative business figures I have come across are graduates of the Arts and Humanities or alternatively professionals such as doctors or vets who modified their career plans. Arts-humanities disciplines and their graduates in particular are often the seedbed of new developments in the commercial sphere; one only has to think of the burgeoning heritage and sports sectors to confirm this.

The short-term disappointment of the recent Budget is, in my view, only one more reason to affirm the bold step taken by UCD in publishing its Strategic Plan 2005-08.

For this great institution to compete with a reasonable chance of success, however, it needs to be given appropriate funding - even if what this means in practice is being given the means to compete for such funding.

And let no-one be in any doubt that what we are talking about here is a competition - and often not a very fair one. Irish universities and their academic individuals and groupings are frequently competing for international funding against much better resourced overseas competitors.

To succeed, we have to embody a version of the "Win or die" philosophy - or we will surely lose. The success of the IDA, with which I was associated for many years, was built on a determination to do the business and secure the investment, no matter what obstacles we might encounter.

The best compliment I can pay to UCD and its leadership today is to say that I am no less impressed by the ambition - and ingredients - for success I encounter every time I step on to the beautiful Belfield campus.

I am confident that short-term obstacles can be overcome and that those very ingredients will soon combine and mature into enhanced educational and economic success for UCD and Ireland.

Kieran McGowan, chairman of UCD Governing Authority, is a former chief executive of the IDA. He is also a former chairman and president of the Irish Management Institute.

UCD: What's the problem?

The following are some factors cited by various external reviews for what is seen as UCD's failure to fully realise its potential:

Chronic under-investment by the State in Irish higher education

Excess number of faculties, departments and other academic units limiting interdisciplinary collaboration and the emergence of new disciplines

Disconnection between academic and administrative systems, leading to excess administrative burden carried by academic staff and frustration amongst administrative and support staff over lack of clarity of roles

A resource allocation model which fails to encourage the exploitation of opportunities

Archaic recruitment and promotion procedures

Confusion between governance and management in the conduct of university business

Lack of target setting and metrics of performance

Lack of integration between strategic planning, academic planning and support services

Source: UCD Strategic Plan 2005 to 2008 - Creating the Future