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Ireland Committing $3.4B to Science, Technology & Innovation

June 26, 2006
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Ireland, a country the geographic size of West Virginia and with only four million citizens, about the same as Kentucky, is launching a comprehensive strategy to significantly strengthen the nation's position in the knowledge economy by 2013. And it is investing 2.7 billion Euros by 2008 - or $3.4 billion U.S. - toward implementing more than 75 specific action items.



Released June 25 by Ireland's Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, the Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation presents the reasons for making such a sizable commitment as well as the areas to receive the targeted investment. For instance, in the area of delivering world class research, the island nation will expand its recent expenditures for its university research infrastructure with the goal of doubling the number of Ph.D. graduates by 2013.



Public research activities, those carried out or supported by the national government, will be expanded in research thrusts of: agriculture and food; health; environment; marine sciences; and energy.



In its comprehensive scope, the plan outlines action items for the rest of the TBED spectrum as well -- from science education to industrial R&D and commercialization assistance to intellectual property protection to international S&T collaboration to R&D tax credits.



Major investment areas to receive new funds include university research infrastructure (€640 million), enterprise support (€340 million), and research and commercialization programs (€900 million).



The strategy is available at: http://www.entemp.ie/publications/science/2006/sciencestrategy.pdf

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