Some thoughts on Innovation 2020

Business Guru Michael Porter once said that innovation is the central issue in economic prosperity. He is right, innovation is critical to driving economic growth and, more importantly, job creation but innovation is not only a critical part of solving Ireland’s economic challenges, it is also critical to the solution of many of Ireland’s social and environmental problems.

 Innovation 2020 is Ireland’s new strategy for Science Research and Innovation. It commits Ireland to investing 2.5% of GNP into research by 2020, to ensuring that Irish enterprise is employs 40,000 researchers, increasing research masters and Ph.D. enrolments by 500 to 2500 a year, investing in specialist research centres and supporting indigenous enterprise to leverage Ireland’s research talent.

The strategy is designed to make Ireland an Innovation leader capable of competing with other global research centres. It is designed to help Ireland attract more multinational research investment, lock in existing multinational investment and support the development of indigenous enterprises, and most of all to further develop Ireland’s research talent.

 In the last few weeks we have seen a spate of announcements by the IDA of new research led investments in Ireland from global leaders such as IBM, Accenture, AbbVie, and Huawei. Ireland is longer competing for foreign direct investment based on tax but on talent and in particular research talent.

 Indigenous enterprises are also leveraging Ireland’s research talent. Kerry Food Ingredients and Glen Dimplex are working with Irish Universities to pitch for major EU research projects under the Horizon 2020 initiative. Smaller Irish firms are also heavily involved in research some great examples of these firms can be seen at the Innovation Showcase www.innovationshowcase.ie

 I have spent the last 18 months meeting with the members of Ireland’s research community who are doing some incredible work. Work which (amongst other things) is transforming our understanding of how the human body works, developing new and powerful computer chips and paint for spacecraft.

 Ireland’s first science strategy has delivered a very strong foundation on which Ireland can build. From a low base Ireland has risen to 16th globally for the quality of our scientific research. We’re first in the world for Nanoscience; 2nd in Immunology and Computer Sciences; 3rd for Animal and Dairy.

Innovation 2020 is designed to take Irish research to the next level, from good to great.

One of the most exciting new tools to help us do this is challenge centric funding.The idea is simple and has been around for a long time. Set a major national challenge and offer a prize for the team that can solve the problem. We have all benefited from challenge centric funding.

 Where did the idea for canned food come from? It came from a challenge for a new way to preserve food issued by Napolean in 1795.

 In 1863 Billiards was becoming popular and ivory, the billiard ball material, was becoming scarcer as were the elephants. The leading U.S. billiard supply company offered a $10,000 prize to the inventor of a suitable non-ivory billiard ball. John Wyatt answered the call with the development of celluloid billiard ball which led in turn to the development of the modern plastics industry.

 The reason that I am so excited by Challenge based funding is not just that I think the answers it produces can be really useful but because I believe the proccess will encourage researchers from different disciplines and different industries to work together to solve the challenges. It will drive collaboration throughout the system and also bring in people with bright ideas from outside the research system to drive innovation.

Challenge centric funding will allow us to tap into the creativity of the Irish people and in doing so it will educate them about the great work our researchers are already doing. It also has the potential to a new generation of talented young people to think about a career in the science.

I would love to see a national competition to identify some grand challenges for Ireland’s research community with a judging panel made up of the of the best and brightest thinkers in Ireland and from our global diaspora to identify a number of grand challenges facing Ireland. The prize could be monetary or a mixture of cash, and perhaps policy changes to which address the challenge. I believe that challenge centric funding offers some really interesting possibilities to drive innovation in Ireland.

In life change is the only constant and innovation is now the critical catalyst for job creation. Innovation 2020 is designed to keep Ireland at the cutting edge of research and innovation and to help us not only to create jobs today, but to create the jobs of tomorrow and future proof Ireland’s economy.