Irish Research Council closes year by marking 10 years supporting enterprise
Posted: 30 December, 2015
The Irish Research Council has marked 10 years of supporting enterprise through its enterprise partnering programmes. Representatives from of the first enterprise partners IBM and Intel were present as were representatives of the two most recent enterprise partners Nuritas (a hi-tech food ingredient start-up) and Aylien (a data mining/analytics start-up).
Mr Damien English TD, Minister for Skills, Research and Innovation said “the Council’s employer facing programmes have over the past decade contributed to the development of skills and research capacity for the private sector in Ireland. I recently had the opportunity to meet some of the 320 leading companies who have been involved with the programme as well as researchers who have benefited. It is absolutely critical to the future success of the Irish economy that we apply research and innovation to our business challenges, and provide the necessary supports to enable companies and academic institutions to work together for mutual benefit. The advantages are numerous, including job creation, increased exports, opening up of commercial opportunities, and the positioning of Ireland as a top-class research and innovation centre.”
He further added that the Irish Research Council programmes have a specific role to contribute to the achievement of targets set out in Innovation 2020, the strategy for Research and Development, Science and Technology launched recently by An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny TD. Innovation 2020 targets expansion in Masters and PhD output over the period 2015-2020 to address enterprise and other national needs.
Also speaking on this occasion, Prof. Jane Ohlmeyer, Chair of the Irish Research Council, stated that “working with enterprise and employers is part of the core mission of the Irish Research Council, and its suite of employer facing programmes offers a low-risk, low-cost route to research for enterprises both large and small. The Council is all about developing people through excellent research. Through collaboration with employers, participating scholars develop a range of important additional transferable and complementary skills which open up new avenues for career development.”
The programmes also contribute to the Government’s targets under the Action Plan for Jobs. In the past three years, over 120 jobs have been created for researchers, who are currently embedded in a range of organisations and sectors.
