University College Cork Masterplan

This masterplan review looks at the principles that underpin and support the planned expansion of UCC and its changing context in the city.

In the last 20 years, UCC’s presence in the city has expanded significantly beyond the main campus boundaries. The relationship between University College Cork and the city is changing, reflecting the synergy between places of learning in their urban context.

This relationship is examined in terms of UCC’s spatial connectivity and the interaction between UCC's landbanks and the broader local and regional development context. This analysis is informed by consultations with UCC stakeholders, including faculty leaders, students, administration, and local authorities. In recent years, innovation in campus planning involves a deep rethinking of the relationship between the built form of the university and the built form of its host city.

The principle of the university as an enabler in the city, playing an important economic and social role, helping to co-ordinate economic and social developments at local and regional level implies that the traditional campus boundary is limitless.

UCC’s physical expansion into distinct locations in the city has been gradual over the last decade, and this increase in its profile outside of the traditional campus perimeter offers opportunity to further develop UCC’s relationship with the city socially and economically. This masterplan review strongly recommends the policy of strengthening the identity of the university throughout its landholdings in the city and its function as an activator and enabler of growth in the region.