Update: EU Grant Aid – Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation 16th October, 2014

To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the extent to which innovation and technology continue to contribute to national recovery with particular reference to the extent to which industry here has been in a position to access and avail of advances in this area including relevant EU grant aid; the most important factors likely to affect growth in industry in the future and the means whereby any issues may be addressed; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

For ORAL answer on Thursday, 16th October, 2014.
 

Minister of State at the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (Mr English)

The importance of innovation and technology to Ireland’s on-going and future economic recovery is well recognised by the Government as being crucial to growth in both our indigenous and FDI sectors. Evidence, from both the EU and internationally, shows that the Government’s strategy of accelerating the economic and societal return on our STI investment is paying off.

Globally, we are ranked:

– 11 ^th  in the Global Innovation Index 2014, out of 143 countries.
– 15 ^th  in the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook for 2014, up two places from 2013.
– 1 ^st  in the world for inward investment and quality, as per the IBM Global Location Trends Report of 2013.
– 1 ^st  in Europe and 2 ^nd  in the world for the number of investment jobs per capita, as per the same report.
– 3 ^rd  in the new EU ‘Indicator of Innovation Output’ (September 2013), and
– 9 ^th  in the European Commission’s 2014 Innovation Union Scoreboard

By way of illustration, in 2013 SFI had links to 65% (2,018 jobs) of the 3,085 jobs announced by IDA in fields covered by SFI’s legal remit.
In addition, ‘Knowledge Transfer Ireland’, our central Technology Transfer Office, has recently been set up as a central reference point for entrepreneurs and industry, signposting them to the wealth of technology opportunities and academic talent that exist in Research Performing Organisations.

Measures designed to support industry growth are set out in the Action Plan for Jobs 2014 and include encouraging entrepreneurship and supporting start € up activity, further improving our skills base, assisting our businesses to grow, improved access to finance by SMEs and developing and deepening opportunities from global investment. Work is currently underway to draft our 2015 Action Plan for Jobs.

In terms of European Union funding for research and innovation, with a budget of almost €80 billion covering the next seven years   Horizon 2020 offers huge opportunities to researchers, research organisations and industry to engage in cutting edge research. The European Research Framework Programmes have always been a very important element in providing international linkages and enhancing the excellence of the Irish R&D system. Ireland has set an ambitious target of drawing down up to €1.25bn in funding from Horizon 2020 over the period 2014 – 2020.