TECHNOLOGY CENTRES
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Left: Ronnie Hill, Ascon Group and Frank Corr, AccessNet
THE TECHNOLOGY CENTRES PROGRAMME, WHICH IS IRELAND’S LARGEST INITIATIVE TO SUPPORT INDUSTRY-LED RESEARCH, IS BEARING FRUIT WITH NUMEROUS PROJECTS COMPLETED, SPIN- OUT COMPANIES IN THE PIPELINE AND REAL ENGAGEMENT ACHIEVED BETWEEN INDUSTRY AND THIRD-LEVEL RESEARCHERS. This was clearly evident at the Technology Centre Expo
at the Pavillion Leopardstown in Dublin on 28 November, which represented the first time the 15 centres were brought together at one location since the programme started three years ago. During the packed event centre directors and their teams
shared stories of breakthrough research, productivity improvement, and products and solutions with global potential. Jointly delivered by Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland,
the Technology Centres Programme brings industry and researchers together to collaborate on developing new ‘know- how’ to maintain and grow industrial activity in Ireland. The Government is investing around €100m in the
programme, currently matched with a 30pc contribution from industry. Around 200 IDA client companies are now on board, including Intel, Pfizer, Google, Cisco, Microsoft, Analog Devices, Boston Scientific and General Motors. Altogether more than 300 companies are benefiting from
the programme in a range of areas such as cloud, analytics and learning technologies; manufacturing and materials; energy; food and health; financial services; and business processes. “The technology centres are very much about applied
research – asking the companies involved to have the maturity to come together as a group to define a list of research areas
to help them to become more competitive and sustainable or increase their mandate within their corporate organisation,” says head of industrial research programmes at Enterprise Ireland Neil Kerrigan, who is in charge of running the Technology Centres Programme. “The programme provides a mechanism to engage with
industry partners on problems that they would like to fix within a 12–18 month time frame – rather than three to five years out [which would be more usual with third-level research projects]. Industry sets the challenges and develops solutions together with academia and the research is constantly evolving to address the real potential market. It is not research for research’s sake. “The programme taps into the percentage of PhDs who
want to work with industry. These principle investigators are key. Companies open their factories to them and teams go in to work on specific problems. It builds a collaborative spirit among factory managers, whereas previously they may have been internalised and protective.” The commitment to set up an industry-led research
programme such as this was first mentioned in the Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation 2006–2013 and the first centres started to emerge in 2010 following an analysis of European best practice. “Around 10 to 15 years ago Scandinavian countries became
interested in the concept and similar programmes have been developed in Austria, Sweden and Finland. For Ireland’s agenda the ecosystem was already fit for purpose as we didn’t have to build infrastructure to house the centres. “They are hosted in universities and the investment money
is mainly used to hire good people to do the research. You just plug and play with the existing infrastructure. The key things to creating a good technology centre are close industrial engagement, a good director and good research,”
Issue 7 Autmn/Winter INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 13
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