CONSTRUCTION OF THE TRINITY BUSINESS SCHOOL SITE OF E3 LEARNING FOUNDRY & RESEARCH INSTITUTE Over the next few years, the priority projects of Inspiring Generations are going to transform the campus and beyond: the Old Library Redevelopment project got planning permission in October 2020 – I’ve seen the plans for the new Research Collections Study Centre on the ground floor and it’s going to look stunning. And work has started at the east of the campus on the Martin Naughton E3 Learning Foundry, and again this is going to be transformative: co-educating engineers, computer scientists, natural and environmental scientists, and statisticians to collaborate across the old divide of the natural and the engineered worlds to develop sustainable solutions for a liveable planet. It could hardly be more important. It has also been exhilarating to connect with other alumni, and with Trinity professors and staff, who all feel the same way about the university as I do. We share a common obsession, which is always a great basis for friendship, and there is excitement and potential in grouping together. Instead of staying isolated in our silos, fretting about the future of the world that our children will inherit, we get to come together in a great centre of research and educational excellence and to think about solutions to the great challenges of our time – Climate, AI, energy provision – and how to make them happen. This collegiality has been particularly striking in this past challenging year of lockdown and pandemic. I know from TDA that alumni responded immediately and generously to the call for support to the Student Hardship Fund, helping students whose circumstances had been worsened by the pandemic, and that alumni engagement with webinars and other online events has been brilliant. This demonstrates the instinct within the Trinity community to stay in touch and support each other through crisis, while the foundational gift from AIB to establish the AIB COVID-19 Research Laboratories Hub is such a vote of confidence in the university’s exceptional health sciences research. The Trinity campus has been closed now for over a year but the giving hasn’t stopped. As we start to think about ‘building back better’ the post-pandemic world, it’s more important than ever to stay connected with each other and to support this university which is articulating such a clear vision for outstanding education and research that will help transform Ireland and the world.
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