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Following the range of measures detailed in this week’s Jobs Initiative, the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton TD today announced five major initiatives aimed at supporting innovation and high growth businesses. The announcements were made as part of speech to the Irish Internet Association’s annual conference, entitled “Open for Business”.
The Minister’s announcements include:
•A €5million applied research centre in cloud computing
•A €6million research centre in energy/smart grid
•€44million in funding for Principal Investigator research teams in life sciences, ICT and energy
•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.
“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. According to a recent report by Microsoft, Ireland’s cloud computing industry could be worth €9.5billion per annum and employ 8,600 people by 2014. The new applied research centre announced today, which will connect both multinationals and Irish enterprises with researchers, can see Ireland take the lead in this crucial high growth area.
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