The Arts Council has a longstanding partnership with a number of Irish universities offering Writer in Residence/Fellowship positions. These partnerships are designed to:

• enable creative writers to develop their work while in a position of relative financial stability, and

• provide university students with an opportunity to meet and develop creative reading and writing skills with a practicing writer.

The writer is required to provide a limited number of teaching and office contact hours a week and is granted time and space to concentrate on his or her own writing. The Arts Council contributes €20,000  towards the writer's fee and the university contributes up to €10,000. The university handles all management and administration of the residency programme and the Arts Council plays a role in the selection of the resident writer.

The Arts Council currently supports seven writer residencies, in the following universities:

• Dublin City University (Irish language)

• Dublin City University

• Maynooth University

• NUI Galway

• Trinity College Dublin

• University College Cork

• University College Dublin