Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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101. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the number of small and medium sized enterprises which are research-active; and the number which have some form of engagement with research facilities in publicly-funded institutions. [17126/15]

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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The Action Plan for Jobs accords a high priority to increasing the number of research active enterprises in Ireland, with a particular focus on SMEs.

The latest available data from the CSO, which covers all sectors of the economy, is for 2011. For confidentiality reasons the companies in the CSO data are grouped into small enterprises (less than 50 employees) and medium/large (50+ employees) enterprises. A company is defined as research active if it had any expenditure on R&D activities.

The CSO report that there were 1,109 small enterprises categorised as research active in 2011 and of these 191 engaged in joint research projects with higher education institutes in Ireland and 83 engaged with higher education institutes outside of Ireland.

The CSO data also indicates that 499 medium/large enterprises were research active in 2011 and of these 121 engaged in joint research projects with higher education institutes in Ireland and 42 engaged with higher education institutes outside of Ireland.

Figures from Enterprise Ireland show that 878 collaborations involving companies and publicly funded research institutions were supported in 2014. Of these 591 involved SMEs, an increase of 6 per cent from 2011. These collaborations cover schemes including Innovation Vouchers, Innovation Partnerships, Technology Gateways and International Collaborations including Horizon 2020. The majority of these collaborations at approximately 90 percent are for Innovation Vouchers which typically relate to micro SMEs.

Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) funded researchers currently engage in 901 collaborations with 551 companies. These comprise 462 collaborations with MNCs (51%) and 439 with SMEs (49%). If the data is analysed only including companies that have a base in Ireland, the balance shifts slightly towards more SME involvement (56%). The total number of companies involved in these 901 collaborations is 551. This includes 219 MNCs and 332 SMEs. This illustrates the level of sophistication of research activity in some parts of the SME base.

CSO Statbank tables from which the above information is derived:

Table BSA21: Number of enterprises engaged in R&D activities by size of enterprise, 2007 - 2011

Table BSA34: Enterprises Engaged in Joint Research Projects (%) by Size of Enterprise, Research Partners and Year