European Commissioner urges Ireland to keep up spending on R&D
The European Commissioner for Research, Janez Potocnik has urged Ireland not to let spending on Research and Development fall behind. At present, gross spending on R&D in Ireland is over 1.3% of GDP whereas the EU average is 1.8%. There is an EU target for spending on R&D of 3.0% of GDP by 2010. "Ireland is making progress in narrowing the gap on R&D spending. I can only urge you to sustain - and where possible - increase the pace. The rest of the EU will look to you even more as an example," the Commissioner said today in Dublin. The Commissioner was speaking during a visit to Dublin hosted by the European Commission Representation in Ireland and Enterprise Ireland. Commissioner Potocnik is in charge of scientific and applied research across the EU. This includes the money channelled through the 7th Framework Programme (FP7) for joint Irish-European Research programmes. In the most recent programme (FP6), Irish research institutions and companies participated in more than 500 collaborative research partnerships across Europe and, under the Marie Curie element, hosted more than 250 skilled researchers from around Europe, bringing the benefit of their scientific training to Ireland. In monetary terms, this activity injected some €200 million of additional European funding into the Irish research system over the lifetime of the programme (2003-2006). The €200 million secured by Irish participants in FP6 equated to approximately 1.1 per cent of the budget available, a figure that is on a par with Ireland’s participation in FP5. Early indications for FP7 are promising. Enterprise Ireland has provided more financial support for proposal preparation in the first year of FP7 than in the whole of the previous programme suggesting a high level of activity on the ground. During his two day visit the Commissioner visited two Irish universities; Dublin City University and University of Dublin, Trinity College. He also addressed an audience of academic researchers on the ERA and met with industrialists to discuss Joint Technology Initiatives.
Countries
Ireland