Minister announces €55m for R&D initiatives

Pro

12 May 2011

Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton TD has announced a fund of €55 million for a range of initiatives aimed at supporting “innovation and high growth businesses”, with particular focus on turning research and development (R&D) into commercial value.

The announcements were made in a speech to the Irish Internet Association’s annual conference, Open for Business.

Of the fund, some €5 million has been allocated to set up a cloud computing applied research centre. Unfortunately there was little further detail on this initiative except to say that the funds would be made available over five years. The official release went on to cite a Microsoft report about the potential for cloud computing in Ireland, which suggests that by 2014, the cluster of firms involved in this industry in Ireland could generate €9.5 billion per annum and employ about 8,600 people.

The other major elements of the announcement were a €6 million research centre in energy/smart grid, €44 million in funding for Principal Investigator research teams in life sciences, ICT and energy and funding and supports for 25% more high-growth and high-potential start-up companies.

“Today’s announcement represents a series of initiatives aimed at addressing the commercialisation gap, to ensure that good ideas can become great businesses which create jobs,” said Minister Bruton.

“In my statement on Tuesday’s Jobs Initiative I said, as I have been arguing for some time now, that if we are going to grow the economy and create jobs we have to focus on three things: reducing costs to business, improving access to finance, and encouraging research, developing and innovation.

“I was pleased that the Minister for Finance announced, as well as substantial measures on costs and access to finance, a significant change to the R&D tax credit regime to make it more attractive for multinationals to employ researchers and locate R&D facilities here. Today I am delighted to announce a series of measures that my Department will be implementing in the short term to significantly improve the supports to the innovative Irish companies that will create the jobs of the future.

“If we are to develop the companies of the future in Ireland, we must not only fund high-tech research in our universities and support high potential start-up companies, but also crucially address the gap in between the two – commercialisation. The Programme for Government commits to addressing that gap in order to develop ideas into workable businesses so as to create the jobs of the future and get the economy growing again. Applied research centres and principal investigator teams are highly advanced models which partner researchers with both universities and industry partners, to ensure that commercialisation can happen.

“In particular, cloud computing is an area which both Fine Gael before the election and the Programme for Government identified as a key priority.”

Paul Hearns

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