Magee 10,000 student taskforce to deliver report this year, says new chair Stephen Kelly

Stephen Kelly, who was announced as the taskforce’s chair on Friday, said: “We are hoping that this is a very short, sharp piece of work.

"I've committed to ensure there is at least an interim report before the end of this summer.”

The Derry-born Chief Executive of Manufacturing NI said it was his ambition to have a full report for the Economy Minister by the start of December to allow Mr. Murphy to take it to his colleagues in the Executive and the Finance Minister Caoimhe Archibald, in particular.

“It's quite clear that the city's ambitions will only be met by the expansion of this campus of Ulster University,” said Mr. Kelly, who will head up the new taskforce alongside Nicola Skelly, Executive Director of the Washington Ireland Program, as Vice Chair. The taskforce will sit for three years, at least.

"We are going to be working very fast, as quickly as we possibly can. Conversations began on this taskforce with myself just about a week ago.

"A number of meetings have already taken place. A team has been stood up in the Department itself and I think that's recognition of your own personal commitment to the project being delivered,” said Mr. Kelly, referring to the minister.

At a press conference in Magee College’s new teaching block Mr. Murphy said he believed Mr. Kelly’s and Ms. Skelly’s ‘experience, leadership and expertise will ensure the delivery of a robust action plan that will guide us to achieving 10,000 students at the campus, which will be a significant milestone for the North West region and the economy’.

"The opportunities for growth here are enormous and as people in Derry and the North West have rightly identified the growth of the university provision here is the catalyst for greater economic development and growth of the North West as a whole,” he observed.

Professor Paul Bartholomew, Vice-Chancellor of Ulster University, will represent the university on the taskforce.

“I feel fantastically positive about growth. I absolutely believe in this campus,” he declared.

Mr. Murphy said he was fully committed to the expansion of Ulster University as the most expedient way of growing third level numbers in Derry to 10,000.

“We are here to do this through the vehicle of Ulster University which I think is the most advanced and the most ready vehicle to do this. If people have an idea to go back to scratch and start again and create an entirely new university, well I think that's a much, much longer journey.

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"We are keen to get this done quickly. The people that I speak to - I'm a very frequent visitor to Derry, in office and out of office - the people that I speak to are very clear that they want to see rapid economic development in the North West. The North West has been held back has been ignored for far too long.

“What we want to do is bring that type of focus that sees movement, moving forward very quickly.”

Mr. Murphy said he was not in a position at this stage to predict how much it would cost or how long it would take to reach the 10,000 student mark.

"There is an Executive and ‘both-Government’ [Irish and British] commitment to the expansion of this campus up to 10,000 students. What we want the taskforce group to do is work with us and work with the university and then work with the entire Executive and both governments to chart a course to get to that. That's going to be a task of work I'm not going to pre-empt today,” he said.

An aspirational target of growing third-level numbers at Magee to 10,000 was originally set in the ‘One Plan for Derry-Londonderry 2020’ that was published in 2011 and was again included in the ‘New Decade, New Approach’ agreement of 2020.

At the time of the NDNA there were just under 4,000 students at Magee but that has since grown to just over 5,000 with plans in place to hit the 6,500 mark.

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Mr. Murphy said it was not possible to say how long it will take to grow to 10,000.

“That's why we have put a taskforce in place to work with us and to work with the university and to report back. We will be alerting the Executive to what spend is anticipated over a number of years,” he said.

The minister said he hoped that by the time the taskforce delivers its report later this year there will be a clearer path forward.

"What we would like to be able to do then is to highlight to the Finance Department and to the Executive as a whole that this is what it is going to cost, this is what is going to be required to get us to this because we have had that ambition - what we want to do now is to put some flesh on the bones of that,” he said.

Mr. Kelly said he was delighted to have been asked to ‘lead this piece of work which is critical for both the university and the North West’.

"I look forward to working with all taskforce members and other stakeholders, including the local community, to ensure delivery of a campus for 10,000 students at Magee, which supports the Minister's economic vision,” he declared.

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