The Irish Government launched a new report—Project Ireland 2040- at a forum at the Mill Enterprise Centre in Drogheda last week. With the report, the Irish Government announced a €500m Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund (DTIF).
The Irish Government is seeking innovators in various areas, such as robotics, health/wellbeing and smart food products to compete for the share of €500m DTIF.
What does DTIF aim to accomplish?
With the establishment of DTIF, the Irish government hopes it will lead to a collaboration of the research base and industry for supporting the development and adoption of technology in key priority areas. The fund’s mission is to encourage game changing ideas which will help Ireland stay ahead of its competition globally.
How can you apply for funding?
Organisations and research bodies can visit www.dbei.gov.ie/DTIF to get more information on the application process for this fund. Projects should be collaborative in nature, bringing various partners such as academia, commercial and public bodies together.
Benefits of the fund?
John Halligan, Minister of State four Technology, Skills, Innovation, Research and Development, believes that the fund will boost the return on investment (ROI) in research. He feels that the fund will help in addressing numerous actions contained in Innovation 2020, the strategy for research and development, science and technology.
Halligan hopes that the investment via the DTI fund will help Ireland in the creation of jobs and in the safeguarding of jobs into the future.
Mr. Halligan expects that this fund will create new solutions from the research activities, assisting in creating an ecosystem around disruptive technology and innovation, which can create new markets for Ireland’s enterprises.
Challenges of the fund?
The challenge of the fund is that it is very much angled towards Irish academia. Academic led projects can apply for 100% funding plus a 20% overhead for their project costs where as commercial partners such as companies working on the same project can only apply for 50% grant on their project costs. This creates a huge disadvantage and an imbalance for commercially led projects as opposed to academically led projects. Only time will tell if this €500 million investment by the Irish Government will result in a significant return for the Irish tax payer with such an emphasis on academically led projects.
