Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen,
I am delighted to be here today to officially open this top-class research facility here in Waterford IT and I want to congratulate everyone who helped make today possible.
Today is further evidence that our research and innovation effort is delivering for Ireland : -
in enhancing our international scientific reputation;
advancing medical breakthroughs and making a real difference to the quality of people's lives; and
delivering good, sustainable jobs for our people.
Today’s opening in Waterford IT delivers on the State’s research and innovation commitments – I have always believed if you put smart people in the right environment, with the right incentives, then good things will happen.
I wish to acknowledge the tremendous achievement of the Macular Pigment Research Group based here at the Centre and led by Dr. John Nolan and Prof Stephen Beatty.
Indeed, the excellence of your research effort has now been recognized internationally, through the recent awarding of significant grant funding from the European Research Council amounting to €1.5m.
That you have achieved this very impressive ERC success, the first of its kind for an Irish Institute of Technology, speaks volumes for you, your team and for Waterford IT.
Well done indeed.
I also know that you are not resting on your laurels and are well positioned to attract additional EU funding through the 7th Framework Programme and are also well prepared for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead under Horizon 2020.
The awarding of this ERC funding is a fine testimony of the work of your group which has significantly contributed to science and medicine by publishing landmark research papers in highly respected scientific journals.
I also understand that you have published more scientific papers on this topic than any other research group in the world.
This certainly puts Waterford IT, the South-East, and Ireland on the global map in terms both of possessing a true research capacity and being an international leader in Macular Degeneration research.
This blindness disease is now reaching epidemic proportions around the world. Macular Degeneration presently impacts on about 80,000 people in this country alone at an estimated cost of €133m per year.
Extend that further across the estimated 12 million sufferers Europe-wide alone, and you immediately can appreciate the scale of the problem as well as the associated costs.
But what you are doing here at the Vision Research Centre is not merely striving to improve the quality of people’s lives by attempting to minimise the degenerative effects of age-related blindness, important though that is.
Your scientific research efforts also continues to make a significant commercial impact and is already delivering quality jobs for the Irish labour market.
And it is the relevance and importance of the research and innovation effort to our economic recovery that I, and several of my Ministerial colleagues, have stressed time and again since this Government entered office just over a year ago.
On my St. Patrick’s Day visit to the USA I had the opportunity to meet with the “Wild Geese Network of Irish Scientists”.
Our discussion centred on this being a pivotal time for science globally - not just for Ireland. That science is a global language and that we all need to be part of the conversation.
The fact is that the words “Science” and “recovery” are becoming increasingly synonymous.
Time and time again, we hear Ireland’s robust R&D infrastructure and research personnel cited as primary reasons for multinationals choosing to invest and locate in our country.
In terms of Ireland’s research capacity and international standing we have come a long way pretty quickly.
In the mid-1980s, Ireland’s research and innovation capacity was effectively ranked as Third World.
Recently we have broken into the top 20 globally in terms of the quality and impact of our science system - a fact that has not gone unnoticed by the international business community.
The Programme for Government emphasises the role of knowledge and innovation in driving economic productivity.
In this regard, particularly through the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, we are focused on three core aspects aimed at assisting in the reduction of unemployment , namely:
. reducing costs to business,
· improving access to finance, and
· encouraging research, development and innovation.
As a small country with a very open economy, we need to focus on a certain number of niche areas where we can genuinely compete with the best – and be successful –as is being demonstrated by the top-class people here at the Vision Research Centre.
We make no apologies for the fact that we want a science and innovation base that is well connected to the enterprise sector through collaboration and partnership.
What we want is for Ireland to have a reputation nationally and internationally as a location where:
- enterprise and academia work well together,
- open innovation models work, and
- companies that compete globally can find that space where collaboration with one another and with Ireland’s science base makes best sense.
We asked SFI to create magnets of attraction for foreign direct investment. That has been, and is continually being, delivered upon.
We’ve seen an almost six fold increase in IDA’s foreign direct investment gains that are research related.
Clearly we are attracting some of the most innovative companies in the world and creating new innovative clusters.
Ireland’s research base is one of the true Irish success stories of recent years – where despite all of the negativity associated with our financial crisis, our international standing in the global research community has continually been enhanced, by the quality of people like Dr. Nolan and Prof Beatty, and the many others here at Waterford IT.
Of course, the future of Irish companies will be increasingly determined by their ability to take advantage of global opportunities. Because export led growth will be the spearhead of economic recovery, the nurturing of high-quality, innovative and internationally competitive companies is clearly fundamental to Ireland's future prosperity.
And the competitive advantage created through innovation will be a key driver.
Irish based companies undertaking Research and Development, for example, have shown a level of resilience, and growth in trade and exports during the downturn, that demonstrates the value of productive, high calibre research and innovation activity.
Every day, these companies are winning and servicing global sales contracts across a range of modern growth industries.
Government and agency supports are now focused on driving innovation and new product development – in addition to identifying, targeting and delivering on export sales throughout the world, addressing competitiveness issues, and helping to raise finance.
All these supports, articulated recently in the Government’s Action Plan for Jobs, are ultimately geared towards driving growth, sustainability, exports and job creation.
The overall objective of the Action Plan for Jobs is to get the economy back on the right path to sustainable export, innovation and enterprise led growth.
A key objective of the Plan is the continued use of research and innovation to build competitive advantage.
The majority of public research funding will be aligned within 14 priority areas under the Research Prioritisation exercise which was formally announced on March 1st where we are most likely to get economic returns, and monitoring systems will be put in place to measure the impact of funding.
To conclude, once again I offer my heartiest congratulations to all connected with the Vision Research Centre here at Waterford IT.
Thank you very much for your contribution to date and I wish you the very best of luck with your continuing research endeavours.