Enterprise minister Simon Coveney and Enterprise Ireland have unveiled KT Boost, a four-year, €33.4m knowledge transfer funding programme for Irish universities and technological universities. Its objective is to support an increase in research commercialisation outcomes from within this sector – both regionally and nationally – and to develop consistent practices across the knowledge transfer (KT) sector.
The programme is administered by Enterprise Ireland, and co-funded by the government of Ireland and the European Regional Development Fund which aims to promote economic, social and territorial cohesion across all European regions. The managing authorities for the ERDF in Ireland are the Northern & Western Regional Assembly and the Southern Regional Assembly.
KT Boost will support and provide resources to innovation offices/technology transfer offices in higher education institutions (HEIs) around the country to further support knowledge transfer activities, outputs and performance.
Minister Coveney said: “Ireland has a very strong reputation globally for our capabilities in research, innovation and knowledge transfer. In this continuously changing environment, it is important that we match the pace of change and maintain our position of implementing best practice in knowledge transfer.
Drive research commercialisation
"Designed to make the most of Ireland’s significant investment in high performance research at university level, KT Boost will further build on that success to drive research commercialisation and bring more Irish ingenuity to the world.”
Marina Donohoe, head of research and innovation at Enterprise Ireland, said: “The new KT Boost programme will build on Enterprise Ireland’s existing supports and will help bring the firepower to Ireland’s research system to ensure we maximise its economic and social impact.
"It will support innovators and researchers to investigate, establish and develop new ideas, accelerating the development of innovation capability in Irish enterprise across all regions. This investment will also help to ensure enterprise and industry engages with the deep and applied research that is already under way in the HEIs and unlock its commercial potential.”
On the ground, the KT Boost programme will fund recruitment, skillset development and training within Innovation Offices. It aims to ensure HEIs have the right people with the right skills to propel research commercialisation in our universities and technological universities.
The specialists funded by the programme will support knowledge and technology transfer activities including IP Management and prospective licensing, and spin-out creation. The programme also aims to speed up and simplify transactions with Innovation Offices.
Ultimately, KT Boost is expected to accelerate the rate of high potential startup companies evolving from research spin-out businesses. It also aims to increase the volume of intellectual property licences and research collaboration agreements for these companies.