RTÉ agrees deal to publish NUIG academics’ articles – for five-figure fee

NUI Galway committed to paying at least €70,000 to RTÉ to renew a three-year partnership to publish articles on the broadcaster’s website – written by the college’s academics.

Both organisations, which are State-funded, redacted documents that revealed the nuts and bolts of how the partnership worked, citing ‘commercial sensitivity’, and saying it was a ‘trade secret’.

But under the deal, the university has committed to an annual fee in return for its academic staff being platformed on the national broadcaster.

NUIG’s total financial contribution to RTÉ Brainstorm by 2023 will be at least €130,000.

NUIG, along with seven other universities on the island of Ireland, was one of the founding partners of RTÉ Brainstorm, an online vehicle for academics to write articles for RTÉ and ‘contribute to public debate’.

It’s understood NUIG paid RTÉ €20,000 a year in the initiative’s first three years, from 2017 to 2020. In return, articles and research from NUIG academics were used on RTÉ’s Brainstorm website.

And records released to the Connacht Tribune under Freedom of Information (FOI) reveal that RTÉ sought a 25% increase in the annual contribution for three academic years, 2020-2023.

“We are seeking an increase in the annual contribution from each founding partner from €20,000 to €25,000 a year from June 1, 2020,” said RTÉ’s Director of Strategy Rory Coveney, in a letter to NUIG President, Professor Ciaran Ó hÓgartaigh.

In the letter, dated April 3, 2020, in which Prof Ó hÓgartaigh was canvassed for funding of €75,000 for NUIG’s continued partnership with RTÉ Brainstorm, Mr Coveney made reference to a speech about Covid-19 made by his brother, Simon Coveney, the then-Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Read the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now – or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie