Conal McFeely, Diane Greer and Garbhan Downey are spokespersons for the Derry University Group which is campaigning for an independent university in Derry. As the debate over a proposed expansion at the Magee campus continues, they argue in this article that the city should forge ahead with plans for its own university.

Waiting for consent, while undoubtedly mannerly, can occasionally be the act of a fool. As the Northwest’s greatest living builder, Paddy Doherty, once said, there are times it is better to seek forgiveness than ask permission. This is one of those times.

The people of Derry and Strabane must take control over the undeveloped Ebrington and Fort George complexes as our own property – now – if we are ever to build our own fit-for-purpose university.

Let us explain.

There have been many suggestions recently that the next Stormont administration will persuade UU to expand Magee as a priority. Indeed, there is even a business case outlining how they could increase student numbers to 9,500 students by 2020.

But, in a nutshell, this is why it won’t happen, or at least won’t happen in that manner: neither Stormont nor UU have the money; and they can’t  – or don’t want to – borrow it.

The Northern Ireland Executive is under fierce financial pressure and has, in the past few months, extended its overdraft to bursting point. There are, and always will be, more urgent priorities for the Executive, including supporting the massive new university currently being built in North Belfast.

Given the huge cutbacks across all Executive departments this year, Stormont is not going to source an extra £250m over the next five years for the Northwest – a conservative estimate of what Derry & Strabane would need to ascend to the bottom rung of the HE ladder.

That is why not a single politician is prepared to stake his/her reputation that Magee’s expansion will be guaranteed in, and then carried out under, the 2016 Programme for Government (PfG). 

This is not to be cynical – this is basic common sense. There are very few votes for Magee expansion at Stormont, other from a small number of representatives based here in the Northwest.

The second reason that Magee expansion won’t happen is the university itself. UU has just spent £250m on its North Belfast campus, is establishing new campuses in Birmingham and London, and has no money left. And while the UU Council and Senate will make sympathetic and progressive noises, there is no way that the university will allow itself to take on another massive development for the next five years at least.

Any politician who might believe otherwise – or that they could somehow force such a measure through - must remember that they are dealing with world masters in procrastination. Fifty years and counting.

We would all prefer if UU could do the right thing by Magee – and, in fairness, the site was developed to an extent during the late 1980s, albeit at a slower pace than the three campuses west of the Bann.

But the current HE provision at Magee – as evidenced by our recent statistics showing six out of seven local students couldn’t study their first place course here, even if they wanted to – is no longer fit for purpose, if it ever was at all.

A workable alternative

That is not to say that the Northwest’s third-level provision can’t improve - and improve rapidly - over the next five years. It’s just very unlikely to happen within UU. And Stormont won’t be footing the bill – at least directly.

Over the past 18 months, via its research and a series of newspaper articles, the Derry University Group has raised a number of alternatives to Magee expansion – the central proposal being that of a new, independent university. 

We have argued for the merging of NW Regional College and Letterkenny IT, with a view to creating a degree-awarding institute of technology for the Northwest. This could be done at little cost and quickly. Liverpool has constituted three new universities, painlessly, since the 1990s – all of which emerged from other institutions.

This is only part of the equation, however, and will only take us a small part of the way to our targets.

Technology, on its own, is not enough.

It is essential alongside this to establish a standalone, reputable third level facility that offers specialisms in languages, the liberal arts, history and culture, science, medicine, law, commerce, engineering – plus academic and industrial research. 

If Derry can become an internationally acclaimed City of Culture, there is no reason that the Northwest should not become a centre of academic excellence.

But we need new thinking to achieve this – traditional methods aren’t going to work here. We need to make provision, now, today – not next year, not in five years time - for our children and their children. And we believe the best way to do this, is to do it ourselves. Independently as the Northwest region.

Key to all of this is money – and land. And, as we referenced at the start of this article, we already have the land. Indeed, Stormont has previously stated it was prepared to hand over the Fort George site for educational development.

We need to follow through immediately on that opportunity. The land banks at both Fort George and Ebrington are part of this city – and must now be formally reclaimed by the new Derry & Strabane Council for educational use.

We should immediately mortgage what we can, sell what we need to, beg and borrow what we have to, devise our first syllabuses, and hire new staff to start teaching, and research, at these sites within the year.

To do this successfully, and quickly, we need to act independently – of both Stormont and UU.

A good example of how a region can self-start a third-level institution is Mondragon in the Basque region – which, in 1997, set up a co-operative university, owned and operated by the community, in a former economic blackspot. It is decentralized model, sponsored by, and intrinsically linked at all levels, to local business and the local education sector.

Self-help ethos is paramount

We can campaign, stage cavalcades, make any amount of pledges and wait for others to deliver for us – or we can actually seize the initiative ourselves.

The self-help ethos is a key factor in many of the Northwest’s most important success stories of the past fifty years. Self-help gave us the Derry Credit Union, the Inner City Trust, the Irish Language schools, the Nerve Centre, the Foyle Hospice and the Rath Mor Community Enterprise Centre. Not a single one of these agencies would exist today, if they had waited for process.

One final case in point. Two years ago the internationally-renowned artist, Maurice Harron, was commissioned to create a wonderful sculpture for Ebrington Square. Entitled ‘Celebrate’, it features five children dancing – and would have been a perfect centrepiece for the old parade ground.

After the sculpture lay unwanted in a shed for almost a year, awaiting planning permission, we suggested that we erect it, temporarily, in the Pat Mulkeen Community Garden looking out onto Eastway. Maurice and the funders graciously assented, so we had the edifice installed – and concreted in – that same weekend.

Today it is a proud, and permanent, feature on the Creggan landscape.

By waiting for permission, we miss the opportunity.

There are times, that if we are to grow, we have to take risks. This is one of them.

Conal McFeely, Diane Greer, Garbhan Downey are spokespersons for the Derry University Group

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