Address by Mr. Michael Ahern T.D., Minister for Innovation Policy,
at the launch of Enterprise Ireland’s Informatics Technology Showcase

Wednesday 3^rd October 2007 9.00am The Radisson Royal SAS Hotel, Golden Lane, Dublin 8

Ladies and Gentleman,

I am very pleased to be here this morning at Enterprise Ireland’s 3^rd Informatics Technology Showcase.

The generation and focussed application of innovation is one of the central tenets of the Governments Strategy for Science Technology & Innovation 2006 to 2013.

Transferring knowledge and new technologies developed in Ireland’s third level research institutions into the marketplace is a critical process and as I have already seen on my tour of the exhibitions outside, there is a great deal of this type of activity happening in colleges around the country.

Forfás recently published figures indicating that Ireland’s third level sector’s expenditure exceeded €600 million for the first time in 2006.

A recent EU report published in June noted that EU R&D intensity has been stagnating but recognises that Ireland is amongst a small group that is catching up. Like many aspects of change in Ireland, this catch-up is happening very rapidly.

The imperative now is that we extract maximum value from this research spend. This requires that the enterprise agencies work closely with companies to enhance their competitiveness, driven by greater investment in R&D. This is Enterprise Ireland’s mandate in together with that of state agencies including IDA and Science Foundation Ireland .

Over the past six years, Enterprise Ireland has invested over €150 million from the commercialisation fund in 25 Irish third level institutions.

In addition to funding, Enterprise Ireland employs teams of commercialisation experts to forge links between industry and researchers in the Informatics sector who act as brokers between researchers and the marketplace.

It was a pleasure to meet with the Industry Liaison Officers and Technology Transfer Managers who are representing their respective Universities and Institutes of Technology here today. Their work is invaluable and I encourage you all to pay a visit to their exhibits and familiarise yourselves with the many services the industry liaison and technology transfer offices have to offer companies.

Events like today’s Technology Showcase play a crucial role in ensuring that companies are aware of the potential in the third level research community. The event, as you probably know, is organised by Gearoid Mooney and his team in the Informatics Directorate at EI. It is designed to bring fresh opportunities from the Irish informatics research landscape to the attention of companies in the sector.

As I indicated earlier, this is the third technology showcase organised by Enterprise Ireland’s Informatics Team and I am very impressed by the success that participants in previous showcases have enjoyed.

To give you an example, of the 22 prospects presented at this event over the last 2 years;

• 7 companies have either been formed or are in the process of being set up;

• 5 researchers have negotiated licences, including two deals with large multinational companies to use the technology presented here;

• One researcher, John Ghent, has even been nominated for the David Manley Emerging Entrepreneur Award;

• A further 4 researchers are in the process of trialling and verifying the technology with commercial partners.

That gives you a sense of some of the numbers involved and the achievements that are possible.

Furthermore the researchers who have presented at this event in 2005 and 2006 previously have also:

• had their technology trialled by commercial partners from the Czech Republic to the US;

• had trials with laboratories and hospitals both in Ireland and overseas;

• undertaken discussions with multiple potential licensees, funders, customers and partners globally;

• and through all of this exhibited real dedication to commercialising their technology.

All of these researchers are role models for their peers in pursuing a commercial agenda for their research and the collective experience gained over the past two years will be used to encourage and inform those involved in other projects currently underway in their institutions.

At this point, I must say a few words about Neosera Systems, an electronic design automation tool company that spun out of UCD's School of Computer Science and Informatics, by Senior Lecturer, Dr. Damian Dalton. Dr. Dalton’s research has been funded under Enterprise Ireland’s Commercialistion Fund.

Tomorrow Neosera is launching its new system-level power analysis tool RHEiMS at the UK's National Microelectronics Institute's industry symposium in Bristol.

The technology developed by Dr. Dalton is incorporated into the RHEiMS tool through a licence acquired by Neosera Systems, a UCD campus company of which Dr. Dalton is CEO.

Enterprise Ireland through their Dublin and London headquarters, gave invaluable assistance and support in commercialising this very innovative intellectual property that will be used in designing the next era of microchips. NovaUCD, University College Dublin’s Innovation and Technology Transfer Centre, also strongly assisted Dr. Dalton with the commercialisation of the intellectual property arising from his research.

This concrete result from the strong partnership between NovaUCD, Enterprise Ireland and Neosera is an excellent example of the type of result that can be generated here in Ireland with the support of the various research programmes and further similar outcomes are required.

In conclusion, I would like to wish you all a productive day and I encourage you to make the most of the opportunity you have to meet with the researchers developing the technologies of the future. Thank you.

ENDS/IP10