Innovation is a key enabler of job creation but it is extremely difficult to disaggregate the contribution made specifically by innovation towards overall job creation. Ireland is a small open economy which needs to have the export of goods and services at the heart of its economic strategy. In order for our companies to achieve success on the global market they must be innovative in order to acquire and maintain ongoing competitive advantage.
I have, through the Action Plan for Jobs, set out an approach which is focused on making economic recovery a reality: by delivering improvements in competitiveness; ensuring companies have access to the finance they need to grow and by prioritising innovation as a key driver of success which will lead to jobs growth.
The Action Plan for Jobs emphasises the importance of innovation and the use of technology as core drivers of job creation in Ireland’s key sectors during 2012, and seeks to maximise their impact in the coming years.
My Department and its agencies are focused on the development and support of internationally trading manufacturing and services firms in Ireland in this regard. Enterprise Ireland (EI) is focussed on the growth of world-class Irish companies to achieve strong positions in global markets and works directly with businesses, and the research and investment communities in Ireland to build sustainable competitive advantage for our economy. EI has a range of initiatives focusing on innovation which support businesses to compete sustainably in international markets, in the areas of Organisational and Management Development, Research and Development, Operations and Production, Finance and Investment, Business Strategy and Start-Up.
Manufacturing is the bed-rock on which the growth in Ireland’s FDI was founded. Mirroring the rest of our economy, manufacturing is also in transition. Higher technological investment and higher value products are the hallmark of future manufacturing operations in Ireland. In order to catalyse such changes, IDA Ireland, in conjunction with EI, is supporting an industry consortium approach on a range of applied research initiatives under the new Technology Centres programme.
Additionally, Ireland is now a successful services economy with two-thirds of the workforce engaged in services and we are the 10th highest exporter of services in the world (Source: Services Strategy Group Report, September 2008). Over recent years, services’ activities have accounted for an increasing level of overall IDA investment and Ireland provides a low-risk, quick start-up, high-performance, knowledge economy for service companies.
There are some 130,000 people directly employed in 1,004 IDA client companies and in 2011, the value of the foreign direct investment approvals achieved by the IDA that were research, development and innovation (RD&I) based amounted to €700m. Indeed, some 70% of business expenditure on R&D is accounted for by IDA client companies.
The European Commission’s Innovation Union Scoreboard published earlier this year shows Ireland retaining its position among those Member States with above average performance in their research and innovation systems. The scoreboard shows that Ireland has strengths in a number of areas including human resources, open, excellent and attractive research systems, and economic effects, which include employment in knowledge intensive activities and knowledge intensive service exports.
Ireland has substantial achievements in science over the past decade. We are now in the top 20 in the world for the quality of our scientific output, and in the top 10 globally in a number of specific areas such Immunology (3rd) and Materials Science (8th). The challenge now is to build on these achievements and take our performance to the next level, and that is what the reforms across our research system are aimed at achieving.
The Research Prioritisation Report has identified the areas of greatest potential commercial impact for Ireland. Implementation of the Report's recommendations will see the majority of competitive public research funding being aligned with 14 identified priority areas, where we are most likely to get economic and societal returns, most importantly in the form of jobs. A key economic goal in the implementation of Research Prioritisation will be a significantly enhanced focus on collaborative research with enterprise and on commercialisation by growing the number of researchers in enterprise and enhancing the flow of researchers between academia and enterprise.
