Irish companies ‘most innovative’

IRELAND has come out on top in a survey of 26 leading economies in its ability to develop critical “innovation networks”.

This involves companies and countries co-operating to boost competitiveness by carrying out research of mutual benefit.

The survey was carried out by US-based group Forrester Research. Ireland was ranked number one among 26 industrialised countries.

It is understood that up to six groups are working together in Ireland, sometimes involving up to 20 companies which have pooled their resources to fund research key to making their enterprises more innovative.

An Enterprise Ireland spokesman said it had started “innovation networks” about four years ago. With up to 80% of production destined for export markets, Enterprise Ireland said, a key aspect of its strategy was “to fund this kind of collective research to ensure this country stays competitive at a time when concerns have been raised about our ability to compete internationally”.

Ireland came out on top judged on the two categories of inter-company and inter-country co-operation.

“Some years ago you could not get firms to sit down together in one room and now we have them combining in large groups to further their collective interests,” the Enterprise Ireland spokesman said.