Invest NI to provide £9m support for local industry

Invest NI has unveiled plans to provide up to £3 million a year for the next three years through the new Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) in order to help promote the transfer of university technology to local industry.

The announcement was made at a seminar attended by over 100 representatives from industry and academia by the local government agency.

Speaking at the seminar, Invest NI's Dr Nigel Carr, said: "We need to ensure that new ideas for processes, products and services are properly protected to enable Northern Ireland to reap the full benefits of innovation by protecting intellectual property rights (IPR).

“IPR is a critically important consideration for Invest NI, our client companies and universities as we seek to transform Northern Ireland into a knowledge-driven economy."

Dr Carr said European experience indicated that a number of EU funded research projects presented for industrial development were never exploited due to problems with IPR - often because this issue was only seriously considered too late in the project timescale.

“IP’s relevance to the development and expansion of a ‘knowledge economy’ cannot be under- estimated," Dr Carr said.

“Our economic development is increasingly dependent on high technology based industries and an important tenet of our strategy is the creation of new companies from a sound basis of IPR. This approach is seen in the recently launched £5 million Proof of Concept Programme, which will assist university researchers develop existing, and create new, IP as a step towards ultimate commercialisation by means of a spin-out company or licence agreement,” he added.

The breadth of Invest NI support for IP issues was clearly seen, Dr Carr said, from Invest NI's BIL (Business Innovation Link) programme for inventors and the Innovation Relay Centre assistance with trans-national collaboration between small to medium sized enterprises, through to the larger programmes such as Proof of Concept, Centres of Excellence and the new HEIF.

HEIF, he said, would help the universities to develop their engagement with business and the community; make technology transfer an integral part of the universities’ activities; develop the responsiveness of the universities to the needs of business; increase the exploitation of the Northern Ireland science base; and improve the overall innovation performance of the economy.

The half day seminar was organised by Invest NI’s Innovation Relay Centre, which is part of a European network to promote technology collaboration.

(MB)