Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 16 May 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills

General Scheme of the Research and Innovation Bill 2023: Discussion (Resumed)

Professor Jim Livesey:

There are two answers, one legal and the other organisational. First, we need a much clearer open innovation policy. At the moment our intellectual property, IP, policy is a little cluttered. Good people have done good things but we are overemphasising individual IP too early in the research process. If we have a solid open innovation policy until quite late in the system, we let research be research. We get that iterative research going and individual profit-making IP is put in only at the point needed. We need to stretch the process of open innovation further and it would go quicker then.