This will be no overnight exercise. The plan is a longterm one that will run over the next 10 years, hoping to catapult the school into the top of the league. The Smurfit school's full-time MBA business programme is currently ranked number 38 in the world, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. The EIU also ranked it in the top 13 European business schools.

Within the past year the advance in the global rankings has been admittedly impressive. In 2005 it came in at number 53 in the world.

But Begley wants to do better.

He wants it to be amongst the world's best 25 business schools by 2016.

His recently unveiled 10year strategy identifies improved collaborative initiatives, both at home and abroad, as key to further developing the business school's stature. Earlier this year the Smurfit business school signed an agreement with the Indian Institute of Management in the hi-tech centre of Bangalore in India to help further its aims. The deal will enable MBA students from both faculties to spend time and study in the partner's home campus.

Begley's plan is split into two timelines. The first five years of the school's development calls for the continuing development of "major outward reaching initiatives", while the second five-year phase will focus on the cultivation of "capabilities necessary to compete effectively at the elite level of global business education, " according to Begley.

Also on the dean's agenda is the expansion of the business school's research capabilities.

Begley wants to target three main areas: global finance, technology and innovation, and work and organisations.

Developing global finance skills will surely be necessary if the Republic's substantial critical mass of institutions at the capital's IFSC is to continue to expand. Global outsourcing is a continuing trend - and not just for the manufacture of clothes or call centre operations. Ironically, given the Smurfit school's intensifying ties with the country, India is among the challengers attempting to lure international finance houses. Already US and UK banks are siting operations there, and not just back-office functions, but jobs that would traditionally have gone to major centres such as New York and London.

"We would like to help companies at the IFSC and elsewhere to develop the skills to manage funds as well as process transactions and to make trades as well as track them . . . competing with London and New York in niche areas, " said Begley. "We need to grow expertise in specialist areas of financial transactions and trading."

Begley is backing up the rhetoric with action. A number of new posts are being created at the business school in an effort to realise the aims of the 10-year plan.

A global finance academy is also being established at UCD to oversee research on emerging financial instruments, and a new centre for executive education is also being launched.

"Senior executives currently leave Ireland to experience this level of education, " said Begley in his report. "We intend to bring Irish executives back into Ireland, along with international executives, allowing for the cross-fertilisation of ideas and thoughts for the wider benefit of the Irish economy."