Dara Murphy, Cork North Central Fine Gael TD and Minister for The EU Digital Single has praised Cork Start Up entrepreneurs and researchers in UCC and CIT for turning their innovations into new businesses, with almost 100 Campus Technology Spin-Out’s combined, employing over 300 staff, proving that research and technology creates local jobs and benefits the local economy.
Welcoming the announcement that Cornell University in the US, has just moved Ireland into seventh place ranking in its Global Innovation Index 2016, of the world’s most innovative economies.
GLOBAL RECOGNITION
Mr Murphy, said: “Ireland is rapidly becoming a world leader in technology and innovation, and UCC campus companies (GatewayUCC) and the CIT/Rubicon Centre, with the support of Enterprise Ireland, are at the coalface of the Digital Transformation, building a thriving innovation ecosystem in Cork, which is rapidly gaining global recognition and helping to attract further US Foreign Direct Investment to Cork. Cork Start Ups, are proving to be world leaders in diverse fields from Bioscience, Pharma and healthfood to ICT and Medtech.
UCC’s Innovation Centre, GatewayUCC, has supported 40 Tech companies to date employing over 250 workers, with UCC spin-out companies solving global industry problems in Medical Technology and Bioscience, such as, Skellig Surgical with keyhole surgical research and Luxcel Biosciences transforming the global diary industry by developing a game-changing product for monitoring and assessing the quality of milk.
In CIT’s Nimbus Centre, Bishopstown, 57 knowledge based campus start-ups have grown from the Enterprise Ireland supported CIT-New Frontiers programme, including fast scaling firms like, Radisens, Treemetrics, Composite Recycling, Digihab and Adapptise, all of whom are developing groundbreaking innovations, which can then be utilised by state agencies and commercial companies to build new products and services, thus creating real jobs in the local economy.
HORIZON 2020 PROGRAMME
Research is the growth engine to drive the ‘digital transformation’ and Ireland has secured €274.7 million under the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme, which will further boost opportunities for researchers at UCC and CIT, working on innovative projects, such as, Food Innovation, Smart Energy devices and Electronic Communications.
In a further testament to Ireland’s emergence as one of Europe’s favourite Tech hubs, the European Commission’s annual Innovation Scoreboard recently ranked Ireland as a ‘Performance Leader’ in the area of innovation among Small and Medium Sized (SME) businesses, in recognition of the high numbers of Irish SME’s generating new jobs in innovation.
