and innovation policy

Figure from page 10

Strategic Goal 1:

Our new Smart Specialisation Strategy for Ireland will link national and regional

enterprise and innovation policy, connecting the statutory RSESs, Regional Enterprise

Plans, Impact 2030: Ireland’s Research and Innovation Strategy and other national

policies and will bring greater policy coherence at multiple levels of governance.

Summary

Strategic Goal 1 seeks to ensure that our Smart Specialisation objectives continue to inform policy development, coherence, and implementation. The inter-departmental National Implementation Group for the Smart Specialisation Strategy is now playing a key role in putting a focus on place-based innovation needs and opportunities across a range of policy initiatives.

By bringing a regional perspective to innovation policy development, the preparation of Ireland’s Smart Specialisation Strategy has informed a range of enterprise and innovation strategies including Impact 2030: Ireland’s Research and Innovation Strategy, the Enterprise Policy White Paper, and the nine REPs, as well as providing insights into the development of new policies and strategies.

Embedding Smart Specialisation within national and regional strategies

The inter-departmental and cross-agency National Implementation Group for Smart Specialisation enables consideration of place-based innovation by a range of policy actors. This ensures continued alignment between national enterprise and innovation policies and emerging innovation promotion initiatives. For example:

Under Impact 2030: Ireland’s Research and Innovation Strategy, the policy objective of Smart Specialisation forms a core part of the ambition for ‘innovation driving enterprise success’, by increasing enterprise innovation performance in all regions and maximising opportunities for innovation diffusion. DFHERIS is represented on the National Implementation Group for Smart Specialisation, while DETE is represented on Impact 2030 governance structures, ensuring continued engagement and alignment on place-based innovation perspectives and policy initiatives.

Ireland’s Smart Specialisation Strategy has informed the White Paper on Enterprise 2022- 2030 priority pillar, ‘Stepping up Enterprise Innovation’, which aims to drive increased levels of innovation performance in enterprise while maximising the opportunities for innovation diffusion across regions and sectors. The White Paper supports regional economic and enterprise development through the work of the enterprise agencies.

Led by DETE, Promoting RD&I in Powering Prosperity – Ireland’s Offshore Wind Strategy endeavours to foster a thriving RD&I ecosystem for the sector. The Strategy states that by 2030 Ireland will establish an Offshore Wind Centre of Excellence with a new Floating Offshore Wind Demonstrator site to support growth and innovation. DETE is closely engaged with the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications on progressing these key ambitions and corresponding detailed actions. Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland, Sustainable Energy Authority Ireland (SEAI) and Taighde Éireann-Research Ireland are all members of the DETE Offshore Wind RD&I Working Group, which facilitates collaboration

and communication on industry-focussed RD&I. These agencies also offer an extensive range of programmes and supports to promote investment in RD&I, and DETE intends to highlight these through a targeted communications campaign planned from Q4 2024 through 2025.

A strengthened national approach to clustering through the forthcoming National Clustering Programme will be an enabling factor in encouraging collaborative research and innovation and collective action among firms in key sectors of activity for Ireland and its regions.

Regional Enterprise Plans, which are driven by regional stakeholders, complement the work of the enterprise agencies in identifying specialisms and championing initiatives where that region has a competitive advantage or capability in certain economic sectors. The industry led Steering Committees for these Plans are an important feedback loop for national policy development and oversight of Smart Specialisation.

The National Planning Framework (NPF) and the three Regional Spatial and Economic Strategies(RSESs) provide a statutory forward planning framework to enable more balanced regional development in Ireland. Smart Specialisation is a key economic development principle adopted in these high-level statutory frameworks. At NUTS2 level, the RSESs provide an evidence base and framework through which the Regional Assemblies can guide future growth and investment, in line with the overarching National Planning Framework, including through their management and oversight of ERDF regional programmes.

The Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications (DECC) launched its inaugural Research and Innovation Strategy to 2030 in May 2023. Aligned with Smart Specialisation, DECC’s strategy endeavours to harness the full potential of R&I to achieve Ireland’s goals in support of the green and digital transformations. The strategy is also committed to working with the Smart Specialisation Strategy National Implementation Group to maximise Ireland’s engagement in EU R&I programmes.

Smart Specialisation Strategy in practice through DETE’s REPs

DETE’s REPs and the industry-led REP Steering Committees have assumed a central role in Ireland’s S3 and its ongoing implementation. Continued bottom-up stakeholder engagement through the Committees ensures that regional enterprise priorities are identified and supported and that the entrepreneurial discovery process employed in the creation of Ireland’s Smart Specialisation Strategy continues to inform implementation at the national level.

The recently published mid-term progress reports for the REPs contain updates on regional sectoral strengths and on how Smart Specialisation is being supported in each region through the Plans’ implementation. For example:

The Midlands REP is focused on driving growth in ICT, Advanced Manufacturing/Engineering sectors and Food/AgriTech sectors with working groups established to drive key initiatives in the region.

The North-East REP identifies financial services, AgriFood, Health, Energy and Sustainability sectors as sectors of potential growth for the region. Key initiatives in support of these sectors of strength include the work of the Connected Health and Wellbeing Cluster; dConnect; the CREDIT Tech Gateway for Energy Efficiency; and Agri Forum.

The North-West REP has highlighted Advanced Manufacturing, Marine and Blue Economy, and Renewable Energy as key sectoral opportunities, supported by the work of the Advanced Innovation in Manufacturing (AIM) Centre in Sligo; the Killybegs Marine Cluster in Donegal; and the work of the Sligo Leitrim Energy Agency, which was formally established in 2022.

The West REP identifies key regional strengths inthe Creative sector, Blue economy, and Life Sciences, including Medtech. These sectors of strength are being progressed through the work of CREW (Creative Enterprise West); the BIA Innovator Campus; the Marine Institute; Údarás-led initiative Nua Na Mara; and the development of a Western Regional Life Sciences Hub.

The Mid-West REP is overseeing efforts to support the region’s Smart Specialisation priorities through the opening of Digital Manufacturing Ireland in Limerick; the Future Mobility Campus Ireland in Shannon as a centre of excellence for advanced on-road and in-air mobility solutions; and €1 million in funding to the Technological University of the Shannon (TUS) towards the development of a bioeconomy demonstration site at the Irish Bioeconomy Foundation campus in Tipperary.

The South-East REP is focused on its strengths in Advanced Manufacturing, AgriTech and Sustainability, and Life Sciences sectors. These sectors of strength are being progressed through the work of South Eastern Applied Materials Research Centre (SEAM), SETU; and a Life Science Cluster based in Kinetic Labs.

The development of the AgriFood sector, the Creative and Content Creation sector, and the transitioning to a low-carbon economy are among the main sectors with high employment and innovation capability identified in the Mid-East REP.

In the South-West REP, ongoing efforts to support the region’s Smart Specialisation priorities include the Smart Southern Region project mapping tool; and the Horizon Europe funded Reference Observatory of Basins for International hydrological climate change detection (ROBIN) project to accelerate circular bioeconomy targets.

The Dublin REP is focused on its strengths as a global hub for international investment and high-value jobs in ICT, Biopharma/Life Sciences, financial and business services. Enterprise hub provision in Dublin has been reviewed with a live ecosystem map produced which features enterprise hubs and their contact details across the region. This map also incorporates other ecosystem supports and educational institutions.