Newsletter
January 2012
ISIN signs off on successful 2011!
ISIN wishes you a Happy Christmas and a successful New Year.
This edition will keep you up-to-date with all on-going activities within the Irish Software Innovation Network including upcoming events, funding opportunities and news items. In this edition
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ISIN Supported 18 Collaborations in 2011
ISIN has had a successful 2011 with 18 collaborations in progress, including innovation vouchers, partnerships and other funded projects in progress. Funding of €1.5 million is supporting these collaborations.
Science Foundation Ireland 2010 Census
SFI published their Census 2010 and there were significant increases in the numbers of collaborations with industry in 2010. There were 534 companies working with SFI researchers in 2010 (up from 389 companies in 2009). These figures indicate that the number of collaborations between SFI researchers and industry have more than doubled in two years.
Industry-Academic Collaborations
- Overall there was a 44% increase in the number of collaborations with companies, i.e. 867 collaborations in total versus 601 in 2009.
- The number of collaborations with MNC s increased by 32%; with a 30% increase in the number of companies working with SFI funded researchers, i.e. 237 MNC s.
- There was a 63% increase in the number of collaborations with SMEs (48% increase SMEs i.e. 245 companies).
- It is also worth noting that the number of SMEs increased by 53% in 2009, so that in effect there has been an increase from 108 SMEs in 2008 to 245 SMEs in 2010 working with SFI funded researchers.
The ISIN Website Updates
The ISIN Website is going from strength to strength with new content and enhanced search facilities. Our research database is continuing to expand and now includes both Queens University and UUJ in the research listings. In addition the site is an excellent way to keep up to date with ongoing events in the sector and acts as a 'One Stop Shop', listing all relevant events from all over the country. New toolbars and navigation features were added in the along with new case studies.
News and up-dated information on funding streams and resources have also been added to the site, providing top-class resources for anyone engaged in research or business. In addition new clusters have been added to the site, including Cloud Arena, Agile Ireland and Scrum Ireland.
With so many new developments and future improvements in progress, be sure to keep an eye on www.isin.ie
R&D Tax Credit changes in the Budget
R&D tax credit
The first €100,000 of qualifying R&D expenditure will benefit from the 25% R&D tax credit on a volume basis, with no requirement to refer to the 2003 base year spend. For R&D expenditure in excess of €100,000 the relief continues to be based on incremental costs in excess of the 2003 spend.
The outsourcing limits for subcontracted R&D costs are being increased to the greater of 10% of total costs (or 5% in the case of sub-contracting to third level institutions) or €100k.
Companies in receipt of the R&D credit will have the option to use a portion of the credit to reward key employees who have been involved in the development of R&D.
More information on the business changes in the budget is available here.
Open Data News
There has been good progress on the new Dublin City Open Data initiative, Dublinked. It is open to all companies. Dublinked, the new regional data sharing initiative sees previously unreleased public operational data being made available online for others to research or reuse. With the initial data coming from Dublin City Council and Dun Laoghaire Rathdown, South Dublin and Fingal County Councils, it is expected that other public and private organisations in Dublin will link up with Dublinked to share their data and invite research collaborations. The information is curated by NUI Maynooth to ensure ideas can be commercialised as easily as possible and to minimise legal or technical barriers that can be impediments for small and medium businesses (SMEs) seeking to develop and prove business ideas. The initial release of data consists of over 100 environmental, traffic and planning datasets including:
- Planning application data from across the region
- Water flow, rainfall and energy monitoring
- Air, water pollution and noise maps for the Dublin region
- A wide array of usable mapping from development plans, river catchment and drainage
- Parking, residential and disabled parking as well as detailed traffic volumes
Across the EU, public sector bodies are estimated to be sitting on a potential treasure trove of data, worth up to €27 billion. European Union member states will be forced to digitise all their government data in a move set to benefit developers and tech start-ups. According to new proposals put forward by the EU's Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes, all EU countries will be obliged to make their public data available in digital formats. This represents a huge opportunity for tech companies, which could be worth €40 billion to the EU's economy each year, according to the Commission.
Funding earmarked for research on data-handling technologies alone is around €100 million. Money will also be made available for creating data portal websites through the EU's Competitiveness and Innovation Programme, and the Commission will also back research into data infrastructures. <More information
Other News
Student Career Showcase
Tech industry joins forces to showcase career opportunities
Smart Futures, a national careers campaign and website (www.smartfutures.ie) for second-level students in Ireland, was today launched to highlight the vast number of diverse and interesting opportunities for young people in the technology sector. The 'online careers fair', being co-ordinated by ICT Ireland, the Irish Software Association and STEPS to Engineering with the support of Discover Science and Engineering, aims to highlight that for many young people a qualification in technology is a gateway to an exciting career. It is sponsored by industry companies such as Microsoft, Ericsson, SAP, HP and Cisco. More information is available here.
Events Diary: January - February
Events are added to the ISIN website on a frequent basis. A list of upcoming events is available here. If you have an event which you think would be of interest to ISIN members, please send the details to michael.martin@ibec.ie
January 2012
Certified Scrum Master
24-25th January 2012, Grand Canal Hotel, Dublin »more information
Google Technology User Group
31 January 2012, Google, Barrow St., Dublin »more information
February 2012
GPU Computing and CUDA
05 February 2012 - 08 February 2012, University College Dublin Belfield, Dublin 4
NVIDIA Advanced CUDA Programming » more information
Dublin Beta
13 February 2012, Powerscourt Townhouse, South William St., Dublin 2 » more information
The 8th National Health Summit
16 February 2012, Croke Park, Dublin » more information
Holding an event or have a news article that you think would benefit ISIN members? Simply email the details to michael.martin@ibec.ie
What is ISIN?
The Irish Software Innovation Network (ISIN) is a free matchmaking and knowledge-brokering service to help software companies to identify and engage with relevant third-level research institutes.
ISIN is funded by Enterprise Ireland and managed by the Irish Software Association (ISA), and is open to all software/ICT companies.
ISIN supports the formation of clusters of academics, indigenous software companies and multinationals, encouraging:
- close links between industry and third-level research;
- effective knowledge flows between all involved; and,
- collaborative, focused attention to common problems.
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