The Taoiseach Mr. Brian Cowen TD along with the Tánaiste, Minister for Finance and Minister for Education and Science today launched the TCD-UCD Innovation Alliance.
Speaking at the launch, the Taoiseach said “Ireland faces extremely challenging economic circumstances. The TCD-UCD Innovation Alliance is a radical departure and is a huge boost for the country in rising to our economic challenges. I believe it deserves, and will achieve, international impact and recognition.”
The TCD-UCD Innovation Alliance involves the establishment of a new 4th-level Innovation Academy and a Joint Venture in Enterprise Development. The Taoiseach welcomed these initiatives saying “A new type of business-ready and innovative graduate will help Ireland remain an attractive destination for multinational investment and will greatly enhance the economic impact of Ireland’s expenditure on research by helping to nurture ideas and assist in transforming them into viable companies and jobs for our citizens.”
The Tánaiste and Minister for Finance both welcomed the Alliance. The Tánaiste said “I particularly welcome the fundamental cultural change that must occur in both institutions and that is implicit and indeed explicit in this announcement today. A new culture that combines, as never before, the research talents of the two institutions as an engine for future enterprise, that sets out to create the innovators of the future, and supports new and existing industries.”
The Minister for Education and Science, Batt O’Keeffe TD, commended the universities on the creative energy invested by them in developing the concept. He said “We need to send confidence signals to the international community that Ireland is open for business. That Ireland is looking to a future of new ideas and new success, built on the bright entrepreneurial skills of our people, and a strong culture of innovation. We need collective effort and thinking across the system to make this happen. By coming together to maximise their joint research and innovation strengths, Trinity and UCD are making a very direct contribution to this effort.”
The Minister went on to say that the higher education sector, as a whole can play its part in developing those new responses to the direct economic challenges that we face “The Government's Framework for the development of the Smart Economy talked of the challenge to the higher-education sector of creating new possibilities through new alliances and new organisational arrangements that can advance our knowledge capacity and generate opportunities for new levels of efficiency, performance, innovation and growth. This initiative from Trinity and UCD is a very encouraging direct response to this open challenge.”
The Government also announced today the establishment of an Innovation Taskforce to advance the development of Ireland as an international innovation hub and to assist in making the Smart Economy a reality. This Taskforce will be chaired by the Secretary General of the Department of the Taoiseach, Dermot McCarthy and involve participation from the public and private sectors. Its membership will be announced in the next few weeks.
The Innovation Taskforce will draw on international experience and successful national models such as the IFSC in order to develop Ireland as an International Innovation Development Hub. It will examine options to increase levels of innovation and the rates of commercialisation of research and development on a national basis with a view to accelerating the growth and scale-up of indigenous enterprise and to attract new knowledge-intensive direct investment. It will also identify specific policy measures that assist these goals.
The Taoiseach concluded by saying “I think we can be proud that Ireland’s two largest and highest-ranked universities, Trinity College and UCD, have responded to the challenges faced by the Irish economy and to the initiatives and vision put forward in the Smart Economy Framework. Changing radically the way they work together, the merging of their activities and, most importantly, upping the ambition they have for how the university sector can contribute to economic renewal, are timely and welcome. I look forward to similar initiatives coming forward from across the country.”
Ends
11 March 2009