The Incubation of Innovation
How ‘Team Ireland’ facilitates Research, Development & Innovation
By Grant Leech
In its Annual Competitiveness Report 2010,
Ireland’s National Competitiveness Council (NCC)
determined that,
“while the Irish economy faces unprecedented
challenges, we continue to have significant
competitiveness strengths and opportunities. Our
competitiveness has improved significantly. Costs
have fallen, skills availability has improved and the
pressures on infrastructure have eased”.
It continues,
“the outputs of investment in Research &
Development (R&D) are an important driver of
innovation. It is critical that actions to unify R&D
funding streams and deliver higher economic
returns on R&D investment are progressed”.
The arena of Research, Development & Innovation
has been - and even in these difficult economic
times, continues to be - a sphere of major
importance to the Irish Government. Evidence of
this was seen when, in the most austere budget in
living memory, additional funding of €11 million
was allotted to Science Foundation Ireland (SFI),
the State agency charged with the mission of,
“building and strengthening scientific and
engineering research and its infrastructure in the
areas of greatest strategic value to Ireland’s long
term competitiveness and development”.
The NCC also stated that,
“Ireland’s steady increase in educational attainment
has been an important factor behind our recent
success”.
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While economic constraints have left Ireland’s
Universities and Institutes of Technology – the
“Higher Education Institutions” (HEIs), with less
funding than was enjoyed in previous years, the
institutions themselves have become world-class in a
number of areas.
The areas of greatest importance from the point of
view of Research, Development & Innovation are of
course, science and engineering. It is in this space
that Government policy, industry and academia
converge to make Ireland a destination that excels as
an “incubation of innovation”.
The size of the island of Ireland and the highly
educated nature of its workforce confer on it two
distinct advantages that are particular to the
country. The two primary advantages that serve to
engender a culture of cutting-edge research with a
view to commercialisation are,
1)
Open Innovation
2)
The Test Bed Model
1) Open Innovation
“Open Innovation” is the synergy created by the
convergence of academia, industry and government
policy. The small, highly-networked island of
Ireland facilitates a cross-pollination of ideas across
a number of sectors. The social, numerate and
pro-business nature of the people that populate
Ireland has given rise to many examples of “Open
Innovation” that greatly distinguish the country