Capital's Guinness Enterprise Centre recognised as best college-linked business incubator in the world

The Guinness Enterprise Centre in Dublin 8 is a non-profit organisation and works with companies who originate in a range of Irish universities and institutions, including Trinity College Dublin

Sarah McCabe

Dublin's Guinness Enterprise Centre has been recognised as the top university-linked business incubator in the world in a global ranking of 1,200 start-up incubators.

The UBI Global World Top University Business Incubator and Accelerator Rankings assess university incubators around the globe.

Start-up incubators provide office space, advice and other supports for new businesses.

The Guinness Enterprise Centre in Dublin 8 is a non-profit organisation and works with companies who originate in a range of Irish universities and institutions, including Trinity College Dublin, Dublin City University, Dublin Institute of Technology, University College Dublin's Smurfit School and the Ballyfermot College of Education.

It also works with businesses not linked to educational institutions. More than 90 start-ups call it home, with an additional 70 support companies housed in the centre. About 370 people work in the incubator, with close to 1,000 employed globally by the start-ups it houses.

Contribution to job growth and support for graduate start-ups were highlighted among its top attributes in the rankings.

"The whole team at Guinness Enterprise Centre is overjoyed with this and being recognised and ranked highest among incubators across the globe is a phenomenal achievement," said the Enterprise Centre's manager, Eamonn Sayers.

"We look forward to continuing to play a key role in the evolution of Dublin as a global entrepreneurial hub and to welcoming further Irish and international start-up and growth companies to our Guinness Enterprise Centre community."

Ireland's start-ups and representative groups like Startup Ireland regularly complain about a shortage of affordable, flexible working spaces for new businesses.

Landlords of Irish office space often require long, costly, fixed-term leases for spaces, which are inappropriate for most start-ups, whose needs change as they grow.

The end result is that more and more entrepreneurs are forced to work from home. The share of those working from home jumped from 40pc in 2014 to 49pc in 2015, according to research published in December by Startup Grind.

The research noted that entrepreneurs working from home lack networking opportunities and as a result can struggle to scale their businesses. Some 79pc of entrepreneurs surveyed said they felt the start-up sector in Ireland was not performing to its full potential.