The IDA describes in its “Horizon 2020” strategy
how Ireland is an ideal “low-risk location from
which to establish and develop an international
presence”, as companies can test new technologies in
Ireland before releasing them in other markets.
According to the strategy document,
“Ireland is one of the world’s best laboratories for
companies to ‘develop, test bed and internationalise’
a new technology, service or business process”.
With the country’s superior wind and wave
resources, the area of clean tech is of particular
interest with regard to the test bed model. This is
equally applicable in the “Smart Grid” arena, a topic
that will be explored further in this volume.
Competence Centres
As the Innovation Task Force astutely observed,
the “Innovation Ecosystem” benefits hugely from
“increasing complementarity between strategies for
FDI and indigenous industry based around the idea
of making Ireland an Innovation Hub”.
The primary policy focus with regard to indigenous
Irish industry is exports. As the world’s second most
open economy, with a limited consumer market,
Ireland’s future is dependent on both exports and
FDI as the engines of growth.
IDA’s sister agency, Enterprise Ireland, is the
State agency charged with the task of promoting
internationally, the export of Irish goods and
increasingly importantly, services.
The aforementioned complementarities between
FDI and indigenous industry has seen the sister
agencies undertake combined initiatives, in
alliance with the HEIs, to form seven industryled a