Small firms in Ireland will have improved access to technology and to peer companies in Canada following the signing of an accord with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) yesterday.
The NRC's industrial research assistance programme will join Enterprise Ireland's technology transfer office in matching companies in either country looking for research or industry partners.
A letter of agreement between the two groups was signed yesterday in Ottawa in the presence of Minister for Enterprise Micheál Martin, who is leading the Irish delegation.
The NRC deal is the second significant research partnership agreed during the four-day trade mission. On Tuesday, Enterprise Ireland and the Toronto Medical and Relation Sciences Research Facility (Mars) announced an agreement.
A number of major Irish companies are already working with Enterprise Ireland and the NRC in looking for opportunities in Canada. They include Jacob Fruitfield, Bord na Móna, listed sanitaryware firm Qualceram and Oldcastle, Co Meath engineering group Dromone.
The technology transfer programme was established earlier this year to take advantage of both countries' positions as gateways to significant economic blocs - the European Union and the North American Free Trade Association.
Under the accord signed yesterday, the two institutions will identify a couple of sectors or smaller niche markets where the two countries could find strong synergies to develop.
NRC vice president Pat Mortimer welcomed the move to formalise "what has long been a very positive relationship between our two countries and organisations".
The NRC, which has been home to one Nobel prize winner, was also the first supporter of Research in Motion, the manufacturer of the ubiquitous Blackberry PDA. Its industrial research assistance programme focuses on working with small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to promote innovation and R&D.
Jim Cuddy, head of technology transfer at Enterprise Ireland, said many companies could benefit in ways other than simple direct export deals. He pointed to a series of successful licensing deals, joint ventures and partnerships between Irish and Canadian firms that had proved mutually beneficial.
Mr Martin said the accord represented a further deepening of the relationship between the two countries.
