Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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Question 39: To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation his assessment of the way the increased focus on commercialisation by Science Foundation Ireland may impact on research. [27326/12]

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) was established in 2000 with a mission to build and strengthen Ireland's scientific and engineering research capacity and human capital in the areas of greatest strategic value to Ireland's long-term competitiveness and enterprise development. This was one of a range of key industrial policy initiatives taken to grow our employment value chain as decades of relative under-funding had left Ireland lacking internationally competitive research and development capability and human capital in areas of strategic national interest. This was deemed to be an impediment to attracting large-scale international R&D-based firms and to building knowledge-based, internationally competitive indigenous firms.

Since 2000, SFI, along with significant research investments supported through Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland and the Higher Education Authority amongst others, Ireland has developed an internationally recognised and credible research base. Following the Government's approval of the Research Prioritisation report, the next phase of Ireland's research system evolution places the emphasis on areas with the greatest potential for economic return. Since its establishment SFI has managed a portfolio of award programmes to support scientific and engineering research ranging from early career researchers to large research centres with multiple industry collaborations. The overriding criteria in determining what investments SFI supports are research excellence allied to relevance to Ireland's enterprise base.

Through its various programmes SFI now supports over 500 research groups, comprising approximately 3,000 team members, located across Ireland's higher education institutions. Many of these research groups have established very significant collaborations with industry and this is strong evidence of the maturing of the SFI investment.

To build on this level of engagement with industry and ensure further economic impact for Ireland, SFI recently called for proposals under the newly developed SFI Research Centres programme. The programme builds upon the success of the SFI Centres for Science Engineering and Technology (CSET) and Strategic Research Clusters (SRC) programmes. Successful SFI Research Centres will have to achieve and maintain at least 30% of their overall centre budget in industry contributions. There is a requirement that 10% of this be a cash contribution. Not only does this ensure that the Exchequer gets best value for its investment, it will ensure that the needs and opportunities of industry are well represented and are reflected in the research programme. SFI, in devising the new Research Centres programme, has placed a greater emphasis on flexibility and responsiveness to industry-related opportunities, and researchers will be in a position to embrace additional targeted projects and extend their outreach with commercial stakeholders. SFI is currently assessing pre-proposal applications under the new Centres programme. The initial call has demonstrated a clear demand from industry for this focused engagement – over 450 companies are involved in the 35 pre-proposals submitted to SFI.

SFI has put in place a balanced portfolio of award programmes that supports excellent research while ensuring that funded research groups are in a position to convert and commercialise this research in collaboration with industry. As part of the enterprise development system in Ireland, SFI will continue to fund top-class research with impact and train people that will play a critical role in attracting, retaining, growing and forming companies in Ireland.