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INDUSTRY PARTICIPATION While some of the latter was sourced from the European Union and from charities and or philanthropic organisa- tions, it came predominantly fromcom- panies, he adds. “There’s already considerable leveraging and financing. There’s already considerable industry participation in a number of our centres, in a number of our principal investigator awards and so on. “I characterise this as a journey from
good to excellent, not as a journey from bad to good. There are already good things going on but, as always, you can think about howyou can domore or how you can do things better.” Anewdevelopment for SFI going for-
wardwill be the introduction of thematic funding alongside the more traditional response-led model. Under the new model, the SFI will look for proposals in very specific areas such as, for example, parallel programming for high perform- ance computers or renewable energy into the grid. “I think that thematic funding is very
important because it allows you to get strategic alignment between your very best researchers and what might be called the unique selling points in Ire- land. It allows people to sometimes think a little leftfield. Theymay be working in an area and if they move slightly to the right or left of that area they may find themselves in one of these themes and thatmay be very advantageous.” He also believes it will create new
opportunities for Irish companies. Over the last few months, as well as visiting academic researchers around the coun- try,Ferguson has gone out tomost of the relevant companies, asking them about the kind of research they’d like to see being carried out and if they’d like to be part of the funding in a strategicway. “That puts another card on the table
for the company,” he says. “They can participate as they have done in the schemes, but they can also say, this sub- ject is strategically important to us and we would like to look at that collabora- tively with SFI in some kind of joint call orwhat have you. “Thematic funding provides another
strand to aligning research excellence with potential impact and unique selling
‘It’s key thatwe see an increase both in the number of collaborations, but also in the depth of collaborations and a measure of the depth of collaborations for me ismoney across the table and people exchange’
the number of collaborations, but at some point itwill reach steady state. “From my own commercial experi-
ence I know that something is really important to a company if they put money in. The more money they put on the table, the higher up it has to go in the company for approval, and the more people thatmove between the company and academia or vice versa, the higher it has to go up the company. “I am really pleased about our moves
in that
direction.This yearwe have a call out for centres; they’re currently under review, butwemandated that in order to be able to apply for a centre, the appli- cants had to have 30pc industry contri- bution ofwhich at least 10pc had to be in cash. At the moment there are 35 pro- posals undergoing review and there is €92m of industry cash on the table. There’s €163m of industry in-kind con- tributions, making a total of €255m industry contribution. “And it’s thatmetric that’s key forme.
points and it provides an additional engagement portal for industry.”
THE FIGURES According to Ferguson, collaborations between industry and SFI-funded re- searchers numbered 1,035 in 2011, a 19pc increase over the 867 in 2010. SFI re- searchersworkedwith 583 distinct com- panies in 2011, up 21pc from482 in 2010. The number of collaborations with multinationals increased by 14pc to 246, and there was a 27pc in the number of collaborations with SMEs to 337. SFI researchers collaborated with 67 coun- tries around theworld. This indicates significant engagement
right across the board, he says. “They’re with established multinationals, they’re with multinationals that are going into new areas and trying to expand their footprint and they’re also with the SME sector.” Pointing out that this kind of growth
will inevitably plateau, he stresses that he’s really interested in the depth of the collaborations. “There are two really im- portant metrics for me: money across the table and people across the table.Of course, we will want to see a growth in
It’s key that we see an increase both in the number of collaborations, but also in the depth of collaborations and a meas- ure of the depth of collaborations forme is money across the table and people exchange. “Going forward I expect to see growth
in the numbers, but I’mreally looking for growth in the exchange. In a funny way, that’s like theFDI equivalent for science. We spent €150m of taxpayers’ money and we leveraged €150m of non-SFI money. If we can increase that ratio, it’s a bit like foreign direct investment.” Ferguson says he’s heartened bywhat
he’s encountered since taking up his role at the SFI. “Everywhere I’ve gone, I’ve been surprised on the upside. I’ve seen more good things than I expected or that people told me about. I take two things out of that. One, we have to do a better job of articulating what we currently do – if I don’t know about it, what chance has anybody else of knowing about it? Secondly,we can do evenmore. “The industry is up for it. There’s a
very enthusiastic response there. I think the academic community is up for it. Of course, some peoplewill need to get their hearts andminds around a drive up the curve, but I think people are up for it. It will be tough, butwe can do it.”
Issue 4 Spring/Summer 2012 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 23
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