• About Us
• Campus Life
• Rankings and Accreditation
• Support Smurfit
• News
  • Faculty Views
  • News archive
  • MBA Diary
• Events Calendar
• Multimedia Centre
• Photo Gallery

Dr. Rory O'Shea: "Government must support innovation"

Date: 14 Dec 2009

Published: Sunday Independent

THE Government must use this week's budget to lay the foundations for building its much talked-up 'smart economy' -- and prove its plans have real substance. The importance of a knowledge economy in Ireland is too important to be a victim of a short-term need to balance the books.

There are concerns about the lack of returns derived from State R&D investment, but it is imperative that policy makers put in place a more effective early financing system to support our entrepreneurs and small businesses.

The US stimulates technology innovation and commercialisation through a competitive grant programme that requires state funding agencies to reserve a portion of R&D funds to support small firms doing high-risk, high- payoff research with strong commercial potential. This has helped thousands of businesses bring new technologies to market, benefiting the larger economy along the way.

Ireland's indigenous firms perform poorly in technology innovation compared to the US and even with more comparable countries like Israel and Denmark. This must end. The commercialisation of public funded R&D could have a transformational effect on Irish industry over the next decade

Enterprise Ireland currently runs a match funding feasibility scheme where the entrepreneur has to raise funds to receive a grant. In the US model, funding is based on the quality of the idea rather than the ability to access finance. Enterprise Ireland's scheme should be replaced by a similar no-strings attached ignition grant.

By aligning our financing scheme with our innovation system, we can create an environment where entrepreneurship and innovation can flourish and help turn the economy around.

Dr Rory O'Shea is a lecturer at UCD School of Business