Enterprise Ireland
Annual Report and Accounts 2006
Annual Report and Accounts 2006
Focused Support to Clients
The organisation implements the strategy Transforming Irish Industry through five main areas of activity. In 2006 we made substantial progress and gained positive outcomes across each area.
Achieving export sales
The organisation's overarching objective is to deliver new export sales. This is achieved through our client companies competing for and winning new sales in international markets.
In 2006 we realigned our international office network in response to client needs and to exploit the growing opportunities for Irish companies in India, Canada and Brazil. Our international teams worked with clients on a one-to-one basis and through group events to help them secure international sales contracts. In total, we initiated 6,469 client-buyer meetings, organised 36 major trade mission to overseas markets, participated in 29 international trade fairs and organised 45 inward buyer missions to Ireland.
Client companies realised €1.699 billion in export growth in 2006, contributing to an overall figure of €11.779 billion in total export sales. With Enterprise Ireland input, clients secured 284 significant new first-time international sales contracts, 158 companies established a new market presence in overseas markets and 166 clients exported to new markets.
Due to Enterprise Ireland's deepening relationships with major players in the world economy, five global corporations invested a total of €9.5 million of venture capital in client companies in 2006.
Industry-led research and innovation
During the year An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, T.D. launched the Government's Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation 2006-2013. Enterprise Ireland plays a lead role in delivering the strategy's objectives. These are: to strengthen the research and technology base in the enterprise sector; to ensure more effective commercialisation of the ideas and know-how being generated in our third-level colleges and public research institutions; and, to develop and support partnerships between these institutions and enterprise.
Significant progress was achieved in encouraging and supporting in-company R&D and innovation. During 2006, 601 companies invested €100,000 or more in R&D projects and 40 invested in excess of €2 million. In total, we approved €52.9 million in support of 194 in-company R&D projects.
We also approved €29.7 million for 155 applications-driven research projects through the Commercialisation Fund, and supported 63 company-college collaboration projects through our Innovation Partnerships Initiative. In addition, research funded through Enterprise Ireland generated 24 licences and seven high potential start-up prospects, while 35 company-to-company technology licences were signed by year-end.
Enterprise Ireland aims to bring companies, industry associations, and academic institutions together to work on industry-led research agendas. To date, we have approved four industry-led research projects in the BioIndustry, eLearning, Power Electronics and Mobile Telecoms sectors.
At the end of 2006, Ireland's drawdown from the European Union's Sixth Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development was €193 million over the lifetime of the programme, exceeding the target of €150 million. Funding to private industry (Irish-owned as well as foreign-owned) stood at approximately 19 per cent, which was comparable with the experience across Europe.
Irish input helped shape the €50 billion Seventh European Union Framework Programme launched in 2006, and Enterprise Ireland was given the lead national coordination role. This important programme, intrinsically linked to the Government's Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation, will give Irish researchers and companies access to networking and funding opportunities in European research programmes.
