The board of Trinity College Dublin has provisionally approved a new name for what is Ireland's oldest university in a bid to strengthen its global identity.

Under a rebranding initiative to be completed by September, the board agreed yesterday to a proposal by Provost Patrick Prendergast to use "Trinity College, the University of Dublin" in official communications.

The plan, which includes a standardised logo, is to be put before staff and other stakeholders for observations before returning to the board for final approval.

Launched 12 months ago, the “Trinity identity initiative”, seeks “to create a shared visual identity and narrative for the entire university that allows us to tell a more cohesive and powerful story about what Trinity wishes to achieve in the future”, according to Dr Prendergast.

Name confusion
An outline of the project said "fragmentation and confusion" had been caused by the use of different names for Trinity, from "TCD" to "Dublin University".

It noted: "As well as that, many academic staff travelling abroad, particularly to Asia and the US, report that the word 'college' is often misinterpreted, leading to confusion about our status as a university."

College management argues the official name proposed incorporates important elements for branding, especially the word “university”.

It is believed the retention of the words “Trinity”, “College” and “Dublin” will mean the institution’s more colloquial name will still show up in search queries for research – important in maintaining TCD’s position in third-level rankings.

For the logo, the Trinity shield will remain. Its historic components – the Bible, lion, castle and harp – will also be retained but there will be fewer colours to make it more distinctive and easily reproducible online.