University faces five-year wait for student boost in Derry

Irish government funding will help to see student numbers rise at the campus from 5,242 to 6,500

It will take up to five years for student numbers to increase to 6,500 at the Magee Campus, Ulster University's (UU) vice-chancellor has said.

"Five years is the sort of the period we would be looking at now," Professor Paul Bartholomew has said.

The university is to receive €44.5m (£38m) of Irish government funding for a new teaching and student-services building at the Londonderry campus.

The funding aims to see student numbers rise at the campus from 5,242 to 6,500.

Prof Bartholomew said that he hopes work on the new building will begin as soon as possible and could take about four years to complete.

"It doesn't all happen at once," he said, and stressed that they will also be trying to increase student numbers "within the current envelope of buildings that we've got".

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Prof Bartholomew said the university will find some "time-table efficiencies" to accommodate more students and said there were a number of programmes already underway to reach that goal.

"In many ways the building will need to start off in quite an adaptable basis because in parallel with this, we have to grow the student numbers," he said.

"This won't be the only building on the campus and we can juggle our provision around to suit what we need.

"You've got to have the buildings before you can put the students in there but it can't be done all be at once and it has to be an incremental plan".

The expansion of the university in Derry has long been regarded as a catalyst for economic growth in the region.

Student number target of 10,000

Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar said the announcement on Tuesday fulfilled Dublin's commitment under the New Decade, New Approach (NDNA) agreement to invest in the Derry campus.

NDNA restored Northern Ireland's power-sharing executive in 2020.

It stated that both the Irish and UK governments would aim to financially support the 10,000 student number expansion target at Ulster University.

Mr Varadkar said the Irish government was keen to work with a new Stormont executive, once formed, and with the UK Government "to fund other investments that will benefit the north west and border regions and the island as a whole."

The new building at the Magee campus is one of a number of cross-border projects to receive funding announced by the Irish cabinet.

More than €56m (£47m) of funding was made available through the government's Shared Island Unit.