The Government is to invest up to €56 million over the next five years in a network of competence centres that will support companies in the smart economy, the Tánaiste announced today.
Mary Coughlan said the centres, which will allow clusters of comapnies to work together, would be a departure from the traditional approach to reearch and development.
Delivered jointly by Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland, the nine centres will involve 180 small and medium enterprises and multinationals.
"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," Ms Coughlan said.
"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."
The centres will be based in a university and provide support from partner Higher Education Institutes (HEIs).
Five of the centres have already been established, covering bioenergy and biorefining, IT innovation, applied nanotechnology, composite materials and microelectronics. A further four, including manufacturing productivity, energy efficiency, financial services and e-learning, are currently at different stages of completion.
Enterprise Ireland has already ssecured €32 million investment for the first five centres; it said a further €24 million will be invested in the nine centres in the coming five years.
"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," said Enterprise Ireland chief executive Frank Ryan.
"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."
