Research project - Planning for jobs growth

IT is a pity that on the very day that two of the country’s universities announced a research partnership with the possibility of creating 300 companies and thousands of jobs that Eircom had to announce that it was abandoning its multi-million euro high-speed broadband plans.

The partnership will be styled the Innovation Academy and will cost €650 million over 10 years. These are the kind of developments that may lead us out of the morass we are in but, as always, there is a caveat.

Just as the creation of centres of excellence in health had an impact on smaller hospitals it would be a pity if this development had a negative impact on other universities. The objective must be to sustain that which is viable and expand that with unrealised potential.