Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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208. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the most recent data for Ireland’s ranking in each international table for research and development; and the target originally set by the Government for each such ranking in tabular form. [17309/18]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Innovation 2020, Ireland’s strategy for research and development, science and technology, sets out Ireland’s ambition to be a Global Innovation Leader.  Benchmarking Ireland’s performance against other comparable economies is a key tool to enable the delivery of that ambition and to enable us to develop steps to improve our comparative performance.

The European Commission annually produces the European Innovation Scoreboard which sets out Member States’ performance against a range of indicators and assists countries in tracking progress and identifying priorities.  The 2017 Scoreboard was published by the European Commission in June 2017, with Ireland placed 10^thoverall and categorised as a Strong Innovator, performing above the EU average. The Commission noted that Ireland’s performance increased strongly (6.9 percentage points).

Ireland remains the overall leader in the innovators dimension which demonstrates how innovative Irish SMEs are as European leaders in product, process and marketing innovation.  In addition, Ireland achieved first place in the employment impacts dimension which captures employment in knowledge intensive activities and in fast-growing sectors.

Ireland also performs very well in the Human Resources dimension, in particular in the sub-indicator of population with tertiary education where Ireland scores higher than all of those Member States in the Innovation Leader group.

While Ireland has not set specific targets for other international rankings, my Department closely monitors performance on a number of other indices and scoreboards, such as:

The Global Innovation Index (June 2017) in which Ireland is ranked 10^thout of 128 countries. Within this, Ireland is placed first for knowledge diffusion and second for knowledge impact.

In the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook (June 2017) Ireland is ranked 6^thout of 63 countries, and is recognised as the second most competitive economy within the EU and Euro area. Ireland achieved top ranking position in a number of important sub indicators including investment incentives, labour productivity, flexibility and adaptability, and attracting and retaining talent.

According to IBM Global Location Trends (August 2017), Ireland remains the number one destination for value for money from foreign direct investment.

With regard to scientific rankings, Ireland is placed 11^thglobally for overall scientific research quality (Thomson Reuters Essential Science Indicators, June 2017), achieving second place in nanotechnology, animal and dairy, and immunology.

Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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209. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the ranking of Ireland in the EU on total public expenditure on research and development based on the most recent data; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17310/18]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The tables attached show that Ireland ranks 15th out of 28 EU countries in terms of Government Budget Allocations for R&D (GBARD) in 2016 and 18th out of 28 EU countries in terms of its GBARD as a percentage of total Government expenditure in 2016. 2016 is the latest data available. Source of data: Eurostat.

Share of government budget appropriations or outlays on research and development % of total general government expenditure

Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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210. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the level of public research and development intensity as measured as a percentage of GDP in each of the years 2005 to 2017; and the figure budgeted for in 2018, in tabular form. [17311/18]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Government Budget Allocations for R&D (GBARD) as a percentage of GDP, GNP and the GBARD trend 2005-2017 are available at the link below. Estimates for 2018 are not available yet as the R and D Budget Survey 2018 is currently in the field.

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Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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211. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the capital expenditure in public research and development in each of the years 2005 to 2017; the figure budgeted for in 2018; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17312/18]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The attached table shows capital expenditure for publicly funded R and D in Ireland for 2005-2017. In addition to Irish Government funding, capital R and D expenditure is funded by the European Commission. These figures are also shown in the table. The figure for 2018 is not yet available as the R and D Budget Survey is in the field.

table contd.