CATHAL MULLANEY OUTLINES AMBITIOUS PLANS FOR A NEW RESEARCH AND INNOVATION HUB
The allocation of €2.5 million in funding for a new research and innovation hub for the North West based in Sligo can help build on and further develop the region’s manufacturing industry.
The hub will be located at the Market Yard in a building which was once Sligo’s fire station and later became home to a local radio station and small enterprises.
The funding, which has been awarded to IT Sligo together with Sligo County Council and Leitrim County Council, will go towards establishing the Digital Futures Manufacturing Centre.
It is anticipated that the new facility can help further increase employment across the industry in the region, while it will also provide an opportunity to brief local businesses on regular advances in technology and develop collaborative research projects involving several companies.
Chris O’Malley, Vice President of Research, Innovation and Engagement at IT Sligo, told The Sligo Champion it is a significant milestone for Sligo and the North West.
“We’ve been aware over the past number of years of the growing change in technology across manufacturing,” Mr O’Malley explained.
“We’re also very aware that as it happens nationally only 14pc of the private sector workforce is in manufacturing. But in the North West it is one-in-a-quarter and in terms of Sligo it’s 36pc so it’s of massive importance to our region.
“At the same time we are used to thinking of manufacturing as a fairly stable sector with the same sort of technology going on for years but just in the last few years it has suddenly undergone a whole new revolution and that threatens to put a lot of people out of business if they are not in a position to keep up with it.
“More than half of the people working in manufacturing in the region are actually in companies with less than 15 staff. It’s very difficult when you’re in a small company to keep track of all those different changes that are going on. It’s because we saw that huge threat that was there to a really important part of our economy, we reckoned that something had to be done. We’ve been talking to the Head of Enterprise in Sligo County Council about it for some time and members of the local business community.”
The award of the funding will allow the development of such a centre here in Sligo, and bring a greater geographical balance to the spread of such facilities across the country.
Mr O’Malley continued: “The other side of it is when you look at the whole innovation infrastructure in the country, there are 17 Science Foundation Ireland research centres, and not one of them is north of the line from Dublin to Galway, none of them is at least headquartered north of that line.
“We are a member of one of them but the proportion of funding that comes our way from that is pretty small at the moment. There’s a big job to be done to put in place more heavyweight innovation infrastructure in the north west. We know that most companies, the idea that they would regularly interact with the centre in Limerick or Mullingar for that matter when it’s going to take up four and five hours of their day to get there and back, let alone what they do when they’re there, it’s just not going to happen.”
The new hub will allow for education and information on new and advancing technologies for businesses in the region, while also providing and outlet for companies to come together to engage in research and innovation.
“We can organise events that dozens, if not more companies at a time can come in and get briefed on what the latest developments in technology are,” Mr O’Malley said.
“We can bring in experts, not only from the various research consortia we are connected to but also the companies that work with them that represent best practice.
“Secondly, we’ ll be able to organise research projects that will involve 3, 4, 5 and more companies at a time to undertake specific solutions to what they need to do in terms of taking on the new technology. In some cases we hope that we’ ll be doing new things with technology that has never been done before.”
The allocation of the funding the development of the hub will allow the North West to further build on its reputation as an area on manufacturing excellence. In addition, the new facility Mr O’Malley says could have a hugely significant impact in terms of job creation.
“There are companies there that are dedicated to making the north west a world class manufacturing environment. We’re starting to develop that critical mass of expertise in industry that makes this a real runner, and this will provide a hub.
“We did ask the companies, we sent out survey questionnaires to 75 companies and 40 of them came back. One of the questions we asked what do you reckon would the impact on employment for your company if this centre was set up, and when you add it all up it comes to nearly 500 new jobs, just from those 40 companies.
“We are hoping to get through all the processes in good time, we’ ll start the programme as soon as we get the staff on board so that’ ll be before Christmas. We can start events before the building itself is ready, but the building itself should be ready by the following September.”