Sport England is to invest £20 million (€25 million) of National Lottery funding in boosting the encouragement of sport in third level colleges and institutions.
The bulk of the money will go towards the employment of 150 full time professionals to work in colleges developing sports participation programmes.
£3 million of the new funding will be available to institutions on a grant application basis to assist with paying for additional facilities or equipment that may be deemed necessary
The money is part of a much larger sport and community programme aimed at increasing active participation in sport and which has been further buoyed politically by the bloom around sport in the wake of London 2012.
Figures suggest that students in further education are less likely to participate in sport despite the facilities available to them.
In Ireland the Colleges and Universities Sports Association held a networking and education event at UCD last week aimed at helping club and sports organisers to learn the logistics of putting on tournaments, attracting sponsorship and funding and fulfilling the same objectives as are on the priority list in England.
Sports facilities at UCD, DCU and the University of Limerick in particular are excellent and play host to a number of national sports bodies, training camps and development squads.
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