Enterprise Ireland
Annual Report and Accounts 2005
Annual Report and Accounts 2005
A major part of Enterprise Ireland’s focus on research and development (R&D) is international collaboration and networking. This is to ensure that clients have exposure to the world’s best practice organisations and the very latest developments in science and technology. We have continued to strengthen our links with the world’s largest and premier medical research organisation, the National Institutes of Health and with the Food & Drugs Administration in the United States.
European Space Agency: Enterprise Ireland is actively involved in assisting Irish companies to win contracts from the European Space Agency (ESA). These contracts involve clients in long-term, leading-edge, global R&D projects. To date, more than 60 Irish companies have engaged in ESA programmes.
Framework Programme Collaboration: By 2005, Ireland’s drawdown from the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) for Research and Technological Development 2002-2006 was just over €150 million. Funding to private industry (Irish-owned as well as foreign-owned) stood at 19% which was comparable with experience across Europe. In 2005, €10 million in funding was secured for Irish industry under the programme.
EUREKA: This is a pan-European network for market-oriented, collaborative industrial R&D. In 2005, 11 Irish-based companies and one university research department became involved in new EUREKA international collaborative R&D projects. Four of the new 2005 projects come from the major pan-European EUREKA cluster initiative CELTIC, aimed at positioning Europe at the forefront of telecommunications R&D.
