Confusion over name prompts NUI Galway rebranding

From this week’s Galway City Tribune – Confusion over its name and a lack of brand recognition has led NUI Galway to undergo a renaming process – it will be rebranded as ‘University of Galway’ next Spring.

Staff have been told that a proposal will be brought before the governing body for approval in December – with changes also planned for the university’s logo.

There were concerns that the college’s identity was being lost as its name was ‘truncated’ to NUIG.

Professor Pól Ó Dochartaigh, Vice President of the university, told staff that research had shown the 1997 rebrand from UCG to NUIG had not “maximised the potential for this university” and that another name change had been “gestating for a number of years”.

Despite Galway’s hugely positive international reputation, the university was suffering a lack of brand identity and was not to the forefront of people’s minds relative to other Irish third level institutes.

“When surveys have been done nationally, Galway as a city has actually got a very strong reputation that engenders a positive reception, much more so than Cork or Limerick, for example, and second only to Dublin. But NUI Galway, especially when it is truncated to NUIG, does not have the same brand recognition, because neither Galway nor university then becomes visible in the way that we are frequently referenced.

“Internationally, whilst the Ireland brand has been arguably beneficial, and we are looking at ways in which that can still have a presence in the international market, it is not one that has played for us in the home market or necessarily in the European market. So the idea is we leverage the university brand, we leverage the city of Galway,” Mr Ó Dochartaigh told staff.

NUIG was found to be sixth of seven in a table of the most recognisable university brands in the country – marginally ahead of Maynooth and Dublin Institute of Technology – and further research showed just three in 10 surveyed respondents, when asked ‘spontaneously’ to name Irish universities, mentioned it.

“Mistaken identity” has also been an issue for the university – it was found that more than 1,000 research papers were incorrectly affiliated to the National University of Ireland (Merrion Square in Dublin) rather than NUIG.

(Photo: Prof Pól Ó Dochartaigh of NUIG)

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