GORDON SMITH

THE NATIONAL Digital Research Centre invested €12 million to support 17 research projects over the past year, the organisation's first annual report reveals.

The centre is a non-profit organisation founded in 2006 by a consortium of third-level institutions with the backing of the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources.

In its inaugural year, the agency received 83 project ideas, of which 68 were moved to the proposal stage. A further series of 115 evaluations by internal and external review groups whittled this number down to 17 collaborative research projects.

These are operated as unincorporated joint ventures. They take technology ideas developed in academia and advance them to a stage where they can be commercialised as a product or service.

The centre has more than 100 people working in such late-stage applied research, with 14 commercial partners and 26 academic investigators.

Its chief executive, Ben Hurley, said he was satisfied with the progress made. "Of the 17 projects currently under way, 14 have commercial collaboration, which is a very high level of commercial engagement," he said.

The centre bridges a gap between Ireland's research and development efforts and indigenous or multinational business, he said. "The big challenge is, we don't have a history of getting from one to the other. It is one single value chain and you need to have it joined end-to-end."

Of the €12 million invested to date, €10 million came from the centre's own funds, while other partners contributed €2 million.

Mr Hurley said he hoped the next phase of investment would see a higher percentage of investment from non-centre sources.

The centre is also looking at other schemes to support high-risk research that could be brought to market faster.

Its work is not intended to compete with that done by technology transfer offices in universities, said Mr Hurley. Whereas technology transfer offices tend to focus on licensing intellectual property, the centre's work is focused on building entire project teams and has a strong product emphasis, he said.

The centre has links with several third-level institutions including UCD, UCC, UL, NUI Galway, TCD and DCU.

At a time when use of taxpayers' money is being closely scrutinised, Mr Hurley said it was essential to continue investing in digital research. "In my view, this is vital. It's the missing link. There is a significant risk that previous investments made in R&D will not get realised in terms of value to the country," he said.

The centre was widely seen as a replacement for the failed Media Lab Europe (MLE) project, which was a collaborative joint venture between the Government and US university MIT. MLE went into voluntary liquidation in 2005.

Although the centre occupies the same Dublin site as MLE once did, Mr Hurley was quick to distance it from the earlier venture, pointing out that MLE was focused on blue-sky research rather than turning ideas into revenue-generating products.