The Centre for Talented Youth Ireland (CTYI) is a programme for students of high academic ability between the ages of six and seventeen in Ireland.

There are sibling projects around the world, most notably the CTY programme at Johns Hopkins University, the original model for CTY Ireland. CTY students are eligible to participate in CTY's summer sessions for older students. CTY was founded in 1992, with its first summer programme running in 1993, and is based at Dublin City University in Glasnevin, Dublin 9. The centre offers various courses for gifted students as well as conducting research and promoting the needs of the talented in Ireland.

Currently, it caters for 5,000 students a year. Its current director is Colm O'Reilly.

Eligibility

Eligibility for CTYI's programmes is based on scores in the School and College Ability Test. Students who score within the top 5th percentile are eligible for the top tier of CTY programmes, and those who score within the top 10th percentile are eligible for a second tier, CAT, while students who score within the top 15th percentile are eligible for a third tier, the Summer Scholars programme.

CTYI also allows for bright and motivated students to partake in courses such as correspondence courses, and scholarships can be attained for EUE or the secondary school summer programme.

Programmes

Primary school programmes

Saturday courses are offered for primary school students at various colleges and institutes of technology around Ireland throughout the year. There are courses for both the 6–7 age group and the 8–13 group. DCU also run classes on Wednesday afternoons.

Secondary school programmes

A summer programme for 12–17 year-olds (1st – 5th year) as part of CAT or CTY runs only at DCU premises. These courses give students the opportunity to study college-style and college-level courses intensively for three weeks in the summer in one of two sessions, each of which lasts three weeks. Since, the age bracket has been increased to include children up to age seventeen.

Some of the students at the summer programme come from overseas, mostly from continental countries such as Spain, Portugal, and Italy. Owing to the intensive nature of the programme, a substantial proportion of the 190–280 students who attend each session are residential, living in student accommodation for the duration of the course. However, students can also commute, attending the course as the residential students do but going home at the end of the day and returning in the morning.

In 2026, the following courses were offered:

  • Actuarial Maths
  • Animation
  • Archaeology
  • Astronomy
  • Civil & Structural Engineering
  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Criminology
  • Cult Psychology
  • Electronic Engineering
  • Filmmaking
  • Forensic Science
  • Game Theory
  • General Engineering
  • Law
  • Machine Learning & AI
  • Medicine
  • Musicology
  • Nanoscience
  • Neurodiversity & Psychology
  • Novel Writing
  • Pharmaceutical Science
  • Philosophy
  • Theatre & Stage
  • Theoretical Physics
  • Vet Science
  • War & Conflict

The CAT (for children in the 85th to 95th percentile) version of the programme ends after two weeks and so has a slightly different course matter.

Weekdays in the summer programme are highly structured, with classes from 9am to 3pm, with a lunch break. Activities take place from 3pm to 5pm, supervised by the residential assistants (RAs), while from 5pm and 6pm students have dinner. After dinner students are required to attend a meeting with their RA group until 6:30pm. 6:30pm to 8:30pm is taken up by the study period, which is supervised by the teaching assistant, and social time takes place between 8:30pm and 10pm, with lights-out at 10.30pm.

On weekends, social activities such as discos, shopping trips, visits to the cinema, excursions to various interesting sights in Ireland and talent shows are organised.

Early University Entrance

EUE is a programme for Transition Year students in secondary school. Like the summer programme, it runs on a DCU campus, with students covering two modules (equivalent to what a first year college student in DCU would study) over a semester, one day a week each week, each day having at least 2 different subjects. For Semester 1 2026/27, courses offered include Biology, Business, Computer Science, Engineering,International Relations, Law, Philosophy, Physics, Psychology and Sports Science.