merrion street

The Taoiseach and Ministers Bruton & English meet HERME, a robot trained to have conversations with humans by researchers at the ADAPT Centre for Digital Content Technology. HERME is held by Olivia Waters of ADAPT.

The Government today published Innovation 2020, Ireland’s 5-year strategy for research and development, science and technology.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny, Jobs Minister Richard Bruton and Minister of State Damien English were at the second annual Innovation Showcase to launch the strategy. The showcase was attended by 2,000 industry representatives, entrepreneurs,researchers and investors.

Innovation 2020 is aimed at building on existing infrastructures and achieving ambitious private-public collaborations.

A key ambition of the Strategy is to increase total investment in R&D in Ireland, led by the private sector, to 2.5% of GNP. On current official projections, this would mean that over €5billion will be invested per year in R&D by the private and public sectors by 2020. This will represent almost doubling current levels of investment (€2.9billion in 2014). 

Speaking at the launch of the strategy, the Taoiseach said: 

Innovation 2020 is a key element in our plan to keep the recovery going by helping to create new jobs and new opportunities for research. It sets out a vision in which Ireland would become a Global Innovation Leader, with research, development, science and technology all contributing to this goal. Our reputation for research excellence has been a major catalyst in our success in attracting and maintaining foreign direct investment, and this Strategy demonstrates that we remain strongly committed to maintaining and improving standards in the excellence of our research.

Read the press release here.

Read Innovation 2020 in full here.