Irish R&D competing and contributing globally
Ireland is punching above it’s weight as its continues to gather more than its share of foreign direct investment in Research and Development. FDI for R&D for the majority of countries worldwide is down by 30% yet Ireland continues to attract major R&D funding from global investors. As previously stated in this blog, as disparate technologies such as medical devices, ICT, biopharma and pharma converge, commercial opportunities continue to expand and Ireland has positioned itself excellently to take advantage.
Nanotechnology is one field that because of significant recent developments within life sciences technologies is expected to grow in business opportunities worldwide to a figure of just over $3 Trillion from a figure of just under $150 Billion by 2015.
As things stand currently, Ireland is competing strongly against significant international established players such as Israel, Singapore, Germany and the US and yet we continue to gain a considerable portion of international funding available for investment.
Last year alone 80% of all Irish exports were life science or IT related. Of this Multinationals contributed to 73% of R&D spent in the country with €19 Billion of this expenditure spent directly in the Irish economy.
Impressive figues and statistics by any interpretation and a clear indicator that Ireland continues to attract high value projects and opportunities for high skill, high value jobs. Given the current economic climatic conditions we are experiencing this is very good news indeed-long may it continue.
