UCD College of Business is launching a €65 million bid to become one of the world's top 50 business schools within the next five years.

The advisory board of the institution, which comprises UCD Smurfit School, UCD Lochlann Quinn School and Smurfit Executive Education, has sanctioned the investment of the additional funds to support the aim.

The money will be used to add to the existing faculty, construct new facilities and attract students from Ireland and overseas with new scholarships.

The college said a central theme of the strategy would be to “continuously redefine how business is taught and learned” and “to inspire the next generation of leaders”. Digital business and the financial services of the future are two of the key areas in which it hopes to do this.

Non-exchequer funding

The campaign for top-50 status will be fully funded from non-exchequer sources, with an operating surplus, income from overseas operations, sponsorships and gifts contributing to the pot. The school also runs undergraduate and graduate programmes on partner campuses in Singapore, Hong Kong and Sri Lanka.

"Our students compete with the best in the world – and so must we," said Prof Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh, dean of the College of Business.

Former Unilever chief executive Niall FitzGerald, who chairs the advisory board, said the new strategy gave the business school "a clear and credible pathway" to become one of the top schools.

The school's MSc in finance and MSc in international management programmes have both been ranked in the Financial Times global top 50, while the Smurfit School's full-time and executive part-time MBAs and executive education programmes are in the top 100.