The Competence Centre for Applied
Nanotechnology and the Competence Centre for Microelectronics will work on
industry relevant research to boost competitiveness of businesses in Ireland in
the pharmaceutical, electronics, medical and microchip circuit design markets.
Welcoming today's announcement, Kieran Flynn, Head of Business Development at
Tyndall, said: "Hosting the Competence Centres and working closely with
companies will enable Tyndall to more effectively deliver its technology and
expertise to those companies for the benefit of the Irish economy. These
programmes provide a vital link bridging the gap between research and commercialisation
of technology."
Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade & Employment, Mary Coughlan TD has
provided a welcome €56m boost to companies determined to succeed and grow in
the Smart Economy. Conceived by her Department as part of the Government's
Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation, the Competence Centres are
being delivered jointly by Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland. Clusters of
companies will work together to overcome common research challenges and drive
opportunities for innovation, growth and jobs.
Launching the Competence Centres, the Tánaiste said: “Today we are marking a
departure from the traditional approach to R&D in favour of a collaborative
system where companies that might ordinarily be competitors agree to share
knowledge, risk and the rewards of pooling their research resources. The
Competence Centres initiative offers Ireland the opportunity to excel in nine
key sectors. These industry-led centres will convert the research undertaken
into new products and services, leading to growth in export markets and jobs in
Ireland.”
There will be 180 SMEs and multinational companies involved in nine centres,
five of which are now established. Those established cover Bioenergy &
Biorefining, IT Innovation, Applied Nanotechnology, Composite Materials and
Microelectronics. Four more Manufacturing Productivity, Energy Efficiency,
Financial Services and E-learning - are at different stages of completion. Each
centre will be based in a university with support from partner Higher Education
Institutes (HEIs) to deliver on the research needs of the companies.
Enterprise Ireland has already ring-fenced €32 million in funding for the
initial five centres and it anticipates investing a further €24 million over
the next five years across the nine centres.
Frank Ryan, CEO Enterprise Ireland said: “These centres are a radical step in
enabling companies in Ireland to achieve the kind of transformational change
that is required to re-boot our economy. We have chosen an industry-led
Competence Centre model in partnership with IDA Ireland, as it is regarded as
the most sophisticated R&D vehicle that currently exists internationally.
The centres will dramatically increase the amount of intellectual property
available to Irish companies that they might otherwise never get access to".
Speaking about the benefits of participation to the Foreign Direct Investment
(FDI) companies that are involved, Barry O’Leary, CEO IDA Ireland said: “Companies
like Intel, Xilinx, Pfizer and Microsoft are engaged in these Competence
Centres so they can access the collective expertise of Ireland's top universities and work with Irish SMEs in partnership. This sort of
collaboration is charting the direction of Ireland's Smart Economy and is a
hugely welcome development amongst the FDI community here that rely so heavily
on the generation of new products and services from research."
There are currently six universities involved: UCC (Tyndall), NUI Galway, NUI Maynooth, UCD,
UL and TCD (CRANN) and more HEIs are expected to join. One of
the key benefits to the HEIs involved is that they get access to industry and
the real problems that they are facing. This will assist the HEIs to align
their research agendas with what industry is looking for.
The Competence Centres are expected to generate real impacts within five years
including:
-
Actively collaborating with a community of over 180 companies;
-
Transferring at least 80 pieces of commercially viable intellectual property in
the form of technology licences;
-
Over 60 engineers and scientists directly employed in the centres working on
industrially relevant research;
-
A further 60-80 industry personnel working on centre research projects,
maintaining the centre's market focus and driving a culture of innovation;
-
Greater levels of R&D activity in Irish companies and overseas companies
based in Ireland.
Pictured with a mirochip waver were: Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade & Employment, Mary Coughlan TD with Leonard Hobbs, Research Programmes Manager at Intel (left) and Professor Peter Kennedy, Vice-President for Research, UCC at the launch of Ireland’s first Competence Centres.
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