Optimism around the future of Derry's Ulster University Campus Magee

Ulster University is optimistic about the future of the Magee campus in Derry.

Local residents, secondary school staff and businesses situated in Northern Ireland were invited to an event at the university to demonstrate what is currently happening at the campus and to understand its future expansion ambitions.

The university has a number of sites near and on the current campus site that has be designated to become new teaching facilities.

The new medical school is set to be built on the Strand Road, next to the Derry City and Strabane District Council building.

Construction is set to begin in 2026 with students expected to utilise this new school in the year 2028/29.

This is also the case for the construction of a new teaching block next to the Northland Road, with the funding for this coming from the All-Island fund in co-operation with the Republic of Ireland government.

Throughout the tour, staff demonstrated the forward thinking of the university in its teaching, to provide the best education for their students.

The campus currently educates almost 6,000 students with the most popular courses being nursing and paramedic science.

The course proves to prepare students for the professional world due to the simulating teaching they get, with an area made to look like a Northern Irish ambulance and areas to look like wards in hospitals where patients would be treated.

Magee campus is one of the five centres for nurses and paramedics to convert their qualifications for people who trained in the profession from outside Europe.

Meanwhile podiatry students can provide treatment to members of the public, with a clinic open three times a week where under supervision of teaching staff can provide holistic care for free. 

The investment in the university so far has been significant, as seen in their two fully functioning x-ray rooms for diagnostic radiography students to learn through practical teaching.

Each unit cost £375,000, with a lead-lining room for students and staff to administer the x-ray safely for their learning, and to provide a simulative experience. 

Derry’s Magee campus has also claimed to deliver the first university chiropractic course on the island of Ireland.

This leading of the way in teaching can also be seen in its work with its work in the school of computing intelligence and data analytics centre.

From the post-graduate students who have worked in robotics to the other work in the university studying the brain waves through a head piece of those that suffer from locked in syndrome to establish communication links, and understand the condition further as they study electrical signals from the brain.

The university and its vice chancellor Professor Paul Bartholomew has a positive outlook towards the future of the Magee campus. 

This coincides with the planned expansion of the Derry campus to 10,000 students under the Ulster University Magee Taskforce launched on 22 March 2024 by Economy Minister Conor Murphy, with its chair Stephen Kelly optimistic they can reach this milestone by 2032 if an estimated £700m investment is provided.