Ireland has climbed one place, to eighth position, in the 2015 Innovation Union Scoreboard of the 28 EU member states.

Minister for Skills, Research and Innovation, Damien English TD welcomed the improved ranking and said: “This is the second year in a row in which Ireland’s ranking has improved, up from 9th in 2014 and 10th in 2013. In particular, I am pleased to see Ireland is ranked first on two specific dimensions: Innovators; and Economic Effects which shows that our strategy of accelerating the economic and societal returns on our public investment in research and innovation is paying off.”

“In June 2013 Government set a range of system level targets in the context of implementation of research prioritisation and one of those targets was to move to 8th place in the Innovation Union Scoreboard by 2017 – as a result of a range of policy measures targeting our investment at areas of greatest economic and societal return, encouraging greater collaboration between academia and industry and enhancing the commercialisation of research we have met our target ahead of schedule”, continued the Minister. ”

Of the eight dimensions that make up the European Commission’s Innovation Union Scoreboard, Ireland is ranked first in two of them: Innovators; and Economic Effects. The Innovators dimension measures how innovative firms are, while the Economic Effects captures economic success stemming from innovation in terms of employment, revenue and exports.

“The strengthening of our Innovation performance is bolstering our capacity to compete under HORIZON 2020 – the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation – and I am very pleased with the results for the first 9 months of the programme which show that we are on track to exceed our target for success in the first year.”

Ireland’s researchers and companies have been successful in winning €97 Million of funding in the first 9 months of Horizon 2020.

Ireland has traditionally performed well in areas such as ICT and research fellowships and researcher mobility across all disciplines (Marie Curie Actions). In these areas, Ireland’s researchers have been awarded over €24 Million and €13 Million respectively. Ireland has also been very successful in the Agri-food (€11 Million) and Health (€10 Million) areas.

Ireland’s success in competing for European Research Council (ERC) grants under Horizon 2020 has significantly exceeded our performance in previous programmes. The ERC’s prestigious grants support frontier research across all fields, on the basis of scientific excellence. The funding to ERC grantees in Horizon 2020 so far is over €19 Million.

You can download the full Innovation Union Scoreboard 2015 report here: