Address by Minister Micheál Martin at the NanoIreland International Symposium

on Thursday 15 ^th September 2005 at the Radisson SAS Hotel, Stillorgan, Dublin

Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen and thank you for the invitation to kick off your deliberations on the economic and social prospects and impacts of nanoscience and nanotechnology. The rapidly changing nature of the subject matter you are discussing here today makes it one of the most exciting areas of science today. The conquest of nanotech is one of the scientific and societal challenges which excites all of us who have any engagement with it.

For many of us in the Science and Technology policy field, we can recite the objectives of the Lisbon, Goteburg and Barcelona Summits of 2000 – 2001 almost as a mantra. The central tenet of all three is that Research is key to achieving sustained economic and societal growth. Following on from the Barcelona Summit, Ireland Inc moved to develop a national R&D Action Plan to deliver on the objectives of the various EU Summits and Building Irelands Knowledge Economy (the national R&D Action Plan) was agreed as Government policy.

Currently my Department, in conjunction with a range of other Government Departments, Agencies and the Chief Science Adviser is working on developing a Strategic Implementation Plan that will deliver on our vision of Ireland

"Ireland by 2010 being internationally renowned for the excellence of its research and will be at the forefront in generating and using new knowledge for economic and social progress, within an innovation driven culture."

Nanotechnology is a powerful enabling approach to contribute to the realisation of this Vision. The questions for us here today is: 'given the range of potential applications of this technology – where and how does Ireland best position itself to be able to compete on the global market against other countries who have had national nanotechnology programmes already in place for some years?'

The EU has always played an important role in developing our national S&T infrastructure and in growing our National Innovation System in a cohesive and competitive way. Earlier jointly-funded Operational Programmes for Industry from the mid 1980s enabled successive Irish Governments to make strategic investments in the Higher Education sector and in supporting enterprise R&D. In tandem with the Structural Funds, Irish researchers, especially in the HE sector, competed very successfully in the EU Framework Programmes for Research, Technological Development and Innovation and succeeded in building up areas of research excellence in line with the particular research priorities identified by the EU. For many years critical mass in certain areas of research mirrored EU rather than national priorities. However, in the late 90s the first ever Technology Foresight exercise was undertaken in Ireland to decide for ourselves what our national S&T priorities should be. This was an inclusive and consultative process that set out the broad direction for our S&T investments in the period of the National Development Plan up to 2006. These were Biotechnology and Information & Communication Technologies. We are starting to see the impacts and benefits of these actions. We are becoming a more attractive location for the high value-added R&D function of some multi-national firms

(the opening of the Wyeth plant in Grange Castle in West Dublin last week being but one, very exciting and recent, example) and have growing engagement with R&D by most sectors of business.

The SFI focus on funding the sciences that underpin Biotechnology and ICT give us a strong basis from which to develop our own nanotechnology strengths and possibly provide some practical insights which may be worth evaluating further during your deliberations.

In the world of science and technology the rate of change is rapidly increasing. Companies and policy makers have to be ever alert to new and emerging technologies which have the potential to change the production and innovation paradigm. Policy makers need to develop and use more strategic policy intelligence tools, (such as technology foresight, assessment and road-maps and evaluations), to enable them to identify and assess the potential socio-economic opportunities and impacts arising from the development and application of such technologies and the most appropriate support mechanisms needed.

Nanotechnology is a perfect example of a transformational technology which we all must engage with. In many ways, it is not a ‘new’ technology. Chemists have been working at the nano scale for decades. Indeed, it is not a single technology. Nanotechnology is more of a collective term for a set of technologies, techniques and processes aimed at the manipulation of matter at the molecular or atomic scale in order to create structures with fundamentally new properties and it is and will continue to impact on all aspects of life from diagnostics to motors and from medicine to ICT.

Former EU Research Commissioner Busquin once stated that: “Continued technological progress is dependent on achieving control of materials at the nano scale. Nanotechnology cannot be defined in terms of dimension or geometry alone. In fact, it represents a convergence of the traditional disciplines of physics, chemistry and biology at a common research frontier.” Such comments set the tone and tenor of the challenge that faces us, a challenge I know that you in this room are fully aware of and willing to face down.

Nanotechnology promises to deliver materials and systems whose structures and components exhibit novel and significantly improved physical, chemical or biological properties due to their small size. Nanotechnology also promises to deliver huge benefits for socio-economic development and its use is accelerating. Internationally, government spending on nanotechnology is growing and a prediction made in the USA in 2000 that one trillion dollars in products worldwide would be affected by nanotechnology in 2015 has now been brought forward by five years to 2010……..only 4 years away. It is therefore almost self-evident that nanotechnology has a large employment potential for well educated personnel and opportunities for new high tech start-ups. Ireland must position itself strategically on that trajectory.

In September 2004, the EU Competitiveness Council, in seeking to further develop the European Research Area explicitly called on Member States to use a technology assessment approach when determining their nanotechnology priorities, in the context of both the European Strategy for Nanotechnology and the “3%” Barcelona target for R&D. My Department has been proactive in this and has asked Forfás to assess current and future relevant nanotechnology developments; to consider their potential applications and to develop robust and systematic options to focus and guide national investment in the most appropriate fields within the context of the current and developing Irish science and technological landscape and National Innovation System. I know that this seminar is a central part of that work and will deliver many benefits for Ireland in the years ahead.

I would, at this point, like to acknowledge the support from Mick Devane of Lucent and other members of the Task Force, from key industries here and from other parts of our society, who have agreed to work with Forfás on this important initiative. Ireland is seeking to exploit the potential of nanosciences and nanotechnologies to the optimal level. In making investment decisions in this area in the future it is important that we do so on the basis of an assessment for safe, sustainable, responsible and socially acceptable development of nanotechnologies. I know that the work of this group will help in the achievement of this goal.

Internationally, Government spending on Nanotechnology is growing with the US leading the game and now spending more than $1 billion per year. Japan closely follows, spending in excess of $ 800 million in 2003 and in Europe, Germany constitutes more than 60% of all EU investment spending €300 million annually. However, industry reports indicate that more than $2 billion have been invested in nanotechnology by venture capital firms since 1997 in the US. For 2004, Lux Research estimates that more than $8.6 billion are spent on nanotechnology-related RTDI globally, while the European Commission calculates public expenditure to run at about €3.5 billion per year. Ireland will never be able to invest at this order of magnitude in nanotechnology. However, by deciding together what our priorities are, working together to implement our nanotechnology strategy in a coherent way and developing strategic partnerships nationally and internationally between large and small companies and the HE sector, Ireland, despite a late start, will not be left trailing behind in this critically important area.

Internationally, a lack of sufficiently reliable knowledge about the impacts of nanotechnology developments could result in the full potential of these technologies being constrained. Public debate, is often dominated by futuristic visions of nanotechnology that are either too optimistic or too pessimistic. There is already concrete evidence of negative attitudes to nanotechnologies emerging in public debate. To avoid such perceived public and liability problems, some policy makers react by developing legal or other regulatory barriers to the launch of nano-based products on the market. Production, consumption and public acceptability problems with nano-based products could ultimately have the same constraining effect on the conquest of these technologies. Against this background, it is very important to address nanotechnology issues and investment options in a systematic and extensive manner with other societal impacts being assessed as is now being undertaken in this Technology Assessment exercise.

The current Irish S&T environment is in many respects a mirror of the larger European Research Area. National governments are trying to achieve through, what is known as, the open method of co-ordination (OMC), a more cohesive and coherent research policy and more co-ordinated implementation. This means that in the development of research policy, a range of factors must be taken into account. Human resources and skills requirement, societal aspects, ethics, global problems, must all be looked at before a position is taken on areas with long term impacts.

The Technology Assessment exercise being initiated here will mean a consultative, interdisciplinary and inter-organisational approach that will bring key stakeholders together in a shared and structured process to access information, identify and analyse impacts and to develop and evaluate options for policy-makers. It should make the subject more accessible to all and ensure that not only do we make decisions but that we make the right decisions.

This whole project needs to acquire and process knowledge that allows for the:

balancing of nanotechnology innovations, economic and social factors

monitoring of nanotechnology developments worldwide

identification of viable areas of competitive advantage

development of approaches for special nanotechnology applications in Ireland

addressing public concerns and perceptions

education of the public on nanotechnology related issues

I welcome the indications from the Discover Science & Engineering Awareness Programme that it will consider nanotechnology as a theme for its awareness activities in 2006. It is important that the general public is enabled to separate fact from fiction in any debates on this subject and that as a society we harvest the best elements of these technologies for the betterment of society as a whole.

Whilst the objective of the NanoIreland exercise is to provide options for nanotechnology research in Ireland, the context for the work must always be global. I am very pleased in that respect to see that the programme for today’s event is designed to ensure that leading-edge international knowledge and perspectives are brought into the process for consideration at the outset. Your event brings together speakers from Europe, the East and the US – and speakers who will I am sure share their knowledge and experience with us as we move forward on this important initiative.

Your work is important not just for today but for the future. It may be that in years to come much of what you will discuss here as cutting edge will become common place and that nanotechnologies are as ubiquitous as ballpoint pens, microwaves and TVs. If that is so the process of conquering these new technologies will be critically important to ensuring societal buy in. I wish you every success and look forward to hearing the outcome of your deliberations.

ENDS

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