Read the Financial Times article about the DCU Ryan Academy for Entrepreneurship
Monday 21 November
written by by John Murray Brown, Financial Times

Tony Ryan Academy for Entrepreneurship

Many Irish people have been far too busy making money in the past few years to consider going to business school to be taught how to make money.

But there are signs that more are starting to acknowledge the value of a business school education. Last month there were two important developments. Trinity College, Dublin, announced it was linking up with the Irish Management Institute to create a new graduate school, which it said would be ranked in the top 25 in the world within the decade. Meanwhile, Dublin City University formally opened its Tony Ryan Academy for Entrepreneurship, named after the founder of Ryanair, the low-cost airline.

In some ways the two initiatives illustrate rival trends. Trinity, in much the same way as Oxford University did when it transferredthe executive short courses run from Templeton College to Said Business School to create a central source of management education in Oxford, believes it is better served harnessing its academic and research clout to a better-endowed private sector management institute.

An immediate advantage is that the new school will have much financial freedom to hire the teachers and lecturers it wants, as it will no longer be so constrained by civil service pay guidelines which otherwise apply to university employees.

The DCU academy on the other hand is a throwback to an earlier model of business school, one named after, branded and financed by a well-known local business personality, a model popular in the US.

"I didn't have any particular ambition to have my name on the top of a building, but I think Ireland could benefit from a college like this. And I think it can derive benefit from the Ryanair aura, for want of a better word, which has a strong relationship with young people here and on the continent," says Mr Ryan.

Mr Ryan's association with DCU is typical of many self-made business people who feel they want to give something back to society. Sir Michael Smurfit, Ireland's paper and packaging millionaire, was in many ways the pioneer withhis €6m (£4.1m) donation to University College Dublin to establish the Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business.

Lochlann Quinn, a former chairman of Allied Irish Banks, contributed €5m to found the Quinn School of Business for undergraduates, also part of UCD.

On a smaller scale, a number of individuals have sponsored chairs of business studies such as Philip Berber, a US businessman educated at DCU, who sold his online brokerage company to Charles Schwab for €500m just before the dotcom crash of 2001. He also gave €100m to set up a charity to help the poor in Ethiopia.

"There's actually not much else you can do with €100m which is tax efficient except give it away," says Tom McCarthy, the chief executive of the Irish Management Institute.

Fundraising may be a big part of the financing of larger business schools, but Damien McLoughlin, chief executive of the Smurfit school, says that he does not even budget for donations.

"I was at Stanford recently and was told they relied on donations for 50 per cent of their funding. I don't think we have any such ambition," he says.

The names of the Smurfit Business schools donors are given pride of place in the entrance hall, displayed on honours boards on removable panels rather like a squash club ladder but arranged in order of the size of the donation.

"Irish-Americans are also starting to question whether Ireland really needs continued financial support. Itwas easy a few years ago. But now people say, 'well hang on, isn't Ireland meant to be Europe's fastest-growing economy?'", says Mr McLoughlin.

Those who do contribute are more discerning. John Murray, professor of business studies at Trinity, says: "You no longer get money from benefactors just by appealing to them to support the old sod. A lot ofcorporate benefactors today want a more programmatic approach." All agree that fundraising will get harder rather than easier.

Most Irish schools are either not old enough or large enough to have a community of rich alumni ready to support them. Mr McLoughlin says that among Ireland's new rich the habits of philanthropy are not well-developed, although he acknowledges the big-name donors such as Sir Michael or Mr Ryan can encourage others.

At DCU, Mr Ryan's three sons, Cathal, Declan and Shane, have donated €7m to build the new school, an ­eye-catching building on a site donated by the developersof the Citywest Business Campus, just outside Dublin.

Mr Ryan is committing an additional €10m to support a bursary for those who cannot afford the fees.

"I don't want to lead with my chin on this, but I wouldn't have any problem picking up the fees for some young people, provided they could prove in a clinical hard-headed way that they should be there," he says.

Part of the deal allowed the three sons to claim tax relief for the amount of the donation. But as a result, the academy will not be able to seek public money.

"I hope the business model is robust enough. I think it is important that the academy is entrepreneurial too, and doesn't depend on subsidies," says Mr Ryan.

The inspiration for the academy was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Entrepreneurship ­Centre run by Kenneth Morse. Mr Morse is on the academy's advisory panel and is helping DCU find a director.

"MIT is business networking at its best. They bringin the leading chief executives to talk to the students. They bring in the investment banks to look atwhat's going on and the banks are always curiousas to who is going to bethe next Bill Gates," saysMr Ryan. Mr Ryan says that before he looked at the work of the centre at MIT, he was sceptical that entrepreneurship could be taught. But he does acknowledge it will be difficult to structure business courses to produce the entrepreneurs of the future in what is a rapidly changing economy.

"This was a plan devised several years ago. If you had had an idea then to set up a school for, say, property entrepreneurship, you'd have been left with an empty building by now because everyone would be out there doing it."