Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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1045. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills further to Parliamentary Question No. 487 of 1 June 2021, if 27,755 persons engaged in research and development or 16,609 persons employed as researchers corresponds to the target of 40,000 research personnel in enterprise set in Innovation 2020; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30933/21]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The 40,000 target is for research personnel in enterprise including researchers, technicians and support staff (headcount, not full-time equivalent). In total, there were 27,755 persons engaged in R&D in Irish enterprises in 2019. Of this total, 59.8% or 16,609 persons were employed as researchers, of which 1,966 were PhD qualified researchers. In addition, there were 6,832 (24.6%) technicians and 4,313 (15.5%) support staff.

This falls short of the Innovation 2020target of 40,000 research personnel in industry, despite the significant increase in expenditure on R&D by enterprise from €2.2 billion in 2015 to €3.2 billion in 2019. It should be noted that while the number of research personnel hasn’t increased significantly since the baseline year of 2013 (11% increase), the amount that companies are spending on research personnel labour costs has increased by 36%.

I recognise the vital importance of ensuring that we have a strong pipeline of talent from our Higher Education Institutions to support the creation of high-valued employment in industry as a key enabler of our transition to a knowledge-based economy. Last week I launched the public consultation for the next National Research and Innovation Strategy which will set out our research and innovation vision and ambitions to 2027. In the next strategy, issues such as researcher mobility into industry will be addressed, including providing researchers with the skills to both collaborate with and transition to industry. The needs of industry will also need to be identified.