It was standing room only at Wood Quay in Dublin which was the venue on November 9th last for the Collaborate to Innovate seminar. Over 120 people attended the event organised by the three Enterprise Innovation Networks (EINs) as part of Innovation Dublin. The three networks, IRDG, the Irish Software Innovation Network and the Construction IT Alliance led the event focused on the benefits and issues in collaborating with third level Research Institutes.
The event was opened by Martin Lyes of Enterprise Ireland, who described the need for collaboration, openness to innovation and sharing, and a desire for an environment where experiences could be shared. The purpose of the EIN, he commented, was to provide the facilities and the facilitators to create that environment and exchange that information.
Both IRDG industry speakers, Sinéad Ryan (Head of Central Technical Services, Bulmers) and Hugh Henry (Head of Innovation and R&D, Bord na Móna) described the benefits to their organisations of engaging with research institutes to develop very specific and complex solutions, acknowledging the expertise of the research partners and the opportunity to avail of funding to support the processes.
The Research Institutes speakers, Richard Stokes (CEO of Invent DCU) and Barry Smyth (Director of Clarity at UCD) outlined the processes for organisations in engaging with research partners and highlighted some significant projects where collaboration is yielding real commercial benefit.
Significant time was dedicated to questions from the audience and there was also a significant exhibition space where the Technology Transfer Officers were on hand to provide information on their research institutes.
All in all, this was a most successful event for the three EIN’s who remit is to stimulate innovation networking among industry and sector groups. Further events will be planned in the forthcoming months for 2012.
Copies of Presentations
Sinéad Ryan, Head of Central Technical Services at C&C Group
Hugh Henry, Director of Innovation and R&D at Bord na Móna
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