Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I cannot repeat or stress often enough that innovation is at the heart of competitive advantage. If one looks at the companies that are engaged in innovation and research and development, the case is proven by the increase in exports and the creation of more jobs. Consecutive governments in the past 15 years have enjoyed success. Our aim is to continue to build on that. We invest €730 million annually in research, which is a significant investment. We constantly monitor it and keep working on it to ensure we get the results from it.

The Minister, Deputy Bruton, commented on the question of global rankings, but let me add that we are first in the world for the availability of skilled labour, we are 11th in the global innovation index in 2014, and we are 13th in the world for university, industry preparation and research and development. We are punching above our weight in some categories and that is where we want to be.

The key highlights for 2014 is the 102 high venture start-ups with a three-year commitment of more than 1,500 jobs. There have been more than 1,700 collaborations between industry, third level institutions and Science Foundation Ireland researchers supporting the development of close business links between industry and research and the research system. We are trying to build on that. The plans for 2015 will be to enhance that relationship and to encourage more SMEs to get involved in the research community. Five new research centres have been funded by SFI through an investment of €155 million. We thought it would have been two centres but five is a success story this year.

Some 475 students and researchers have been appointed on structured PhD and emerging technology programmes. This is another example of something we want to encourage. Since we last met, we have published Ireland's first national directory of research centres of scale. Some Deputies will have a copy of the directory in front of them. This important point of contact will flag to people looking in how the system works and where they can make contact.

The first national innovation showcase, which was held at the National Convention Centre, was a great success. It was fully subscribed. It was probably over-booked. Over 2,000 entrepreneurs, industry representatives and researchers from around the country were involved that day. It worked out very well. Many relationships were developed and many connections were made on the day. It is something we want to build on. I am not sure when we will have the next one. We will learn from this one. Industry feedback has been very good. We will be aiming to hold another event, in 2015 if possible. The aim behind this is to develop our Horizon 2020 applications. If we are to achieve our targets in this regard, there needs to be much more involvement from the SME sector and from the multinationals. Our higher education institutions are probably doing their bit in terms of percentages, but we need to get a greater involvement from business as well.

I have touched on a few areas. We are attempting to prioritise the funding that is available for the prioritisation agenda, which covers the 14 main areas. I suppose our science sectors of excellence will push that agenda as well. That is just a short summary.