Martin Daly urges support for ATU urological innovation hub

Just to ask the Minister, to state the value placed on clusters of third-level institutions and innovation hubs, and if there's clear pathways and supports in place for establishing and expanding such hubs, especially in the west of Ireland. And I say that in the context of a very successful urological surgical innovation hub based at Atlantic Technological University in Galway in collaboration with the University of Illinois, Chicago. Minister. Yes, Grave Mogget, I talked to Daly, and I suppose at the outset, I think Deputy Timmons is on this question as well, so just I suppose at the outset, because the questions talk about the collaboration between innovation hubs, industry, and third-level institutions, so I just want to say at the outset that my department has a, I believe, and my department should have, and does have a strong economic focus, and I'm committed to making sure this is an economic ministry that drives the needs of industry, that engages with industry, that engage with labour force, planning, the skills development, and indeed the critical role of research and development, and driving that knowledge economy, and I believe we should be working very closely with the industry in taking the lead from skills and needs of the future, we have a national skills group working on that, and understanding what the needs are, for the projected needs, and indeed supporting, collaborating with industry. So then that collaboration between the tertiary system across all the different educational frameworks and enterprise is critical. So I've underpinned that through a number of strategic engagements, with enterprise agencies like the IDA and Enterprise Ireland, with representative bodies, IBEC, ISME, others, and individual enterprises, and individual multinationals, and many firms who are leading edge in technology and research, who are active in Ireland, including in your own region, Deputy Daly, you'll be familiar with. Part of that then is driven at a policy level, through platforms like the National Skills Council, which I mentioned, the regional skills fora, where we understand the current market needs and emerging needs of the labour force, real-time insights from partners, working sectors, and then programmes like Springboard Plus, micro-credentials, micro-qualifications, skills to advance, and that looks at the skills needs and how industry and the education sector can work together and can supply different course offerings tailored to the needs, and flexible to the needs of the learner, particularly the working learner, where they cannot take a full-time offering but they can perhaps take a micro-credit and plug one on top of the other to gain further qualification. There's also then the Research Ireland Accelerating Research to Commercialisation, the ARC Hubs programme, co-funded by my department to the government, with support from the EU, which aims to establish new models for regional innovation and entrepreneurial training, and that looks to accelerate the transition to market of research coming from a higher education institute, so to take from the lab to the fab, as we say in the case of semiconductors, but similar applies to many other fields as well. And that's so important because often academics are performing an outstanding piece of work, but they may not be equipped to actually take it to the next level, to take it to market, to commercialise it, or even just in mass production to benefit many more people. I did the kind of the urology project that you've advocated for, and I'm engaging with you on that, and I think it's a very interesting project. It's a good example of that, where we can take that industry collaboration, plug it into the research ecosystem, I think it's a synergy that, you know, it lifts all. I welcome it, I'm quite keen to engage further on that particular one. And we've met many others. If we look at the ARC hope for health and tech, I was at the RCSI yesterday, just the Royal College of Surgeons, they have a collaboration with ATU, the Atlantic Technology University on health technology, and they have also been working through that. There's a Western Regional Skills Forum, which allows businesses in the counties of Galway, Mayo and Roscommon to assess and develop skills for their employees, and to work in partnership with those. And on the technological universities more generally, one of the aims of the technological universities is to be a technical expertise rooted in the regions, working with industry, close to industry, to allow that local regional collaboration to progress, and that is such an important project. I'm very committed to that. There's a number of initiatives I want to roll out further within the technological universities over the course of this year and subsequent years, but there's a lot of work going on, Deputy, and a lot more to do. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair. I was just unsure. Thank you, Minister. This model between the University of Illinois, Chicago, they're talking about extending into other areas of medicine. So urology is the template that they've used in Atlantic Technological University in Galway. And they provide their experts based on research and innovation. They've developed a venture studio model, which draws on the experience of world-class entrepreneurs and scientists that mentor researchers to bring their work to startup. And I think that's the important link. We have a lot of research going on, but it's about bringing that research into the real world and also mentoring the people who've done the research so they can bring it to business. And I think that's what we're aiming for. I'm assured that they have a long track record in this area, and because of their reputation, have the ability to attract major investors. And I appreciate your engagement on this matter. I think it's worth it. You might make a statement as well on the new supercomputer collaboration with the University College, Galway. Deputy Timmons. So I take Deputy Daly on the urology project, and as I said, that is a project that I'm very keen to explore further. And there's a number of projects like that that we're developing already in the region. So the New Frontiers program in Castlebar and Galway has a startup ecosystem working with ATU and perhaps the urology could be, you know, along the same lines. On the supercomputer, so I was very keen when I came into this department that Ireland remain at the leading edge of digital, quantum, artificial intelligence. And that requires significant computing power. We need a supercomputer. All the most advanced research activity generates huge, huge data sets. And you need storage and you need computational power to actually make sense of those and find out discoveries. So I initiated the process of procuring a new supercomputer that will be managed by the University of Galway. They have the Irish Centre for High-End Computing already in University College of Galway. They're doing a tremendous job on that. And in actual fact, the bid which we submitted to the European HPC facility, the Galway-led bid actually became third out of, I think, 17. So very highly ranked, you know, very strongly received. We're also pursuing AI Antenna, which is an artificial intelligence factory which plugs into Luxembourg and France, which allows collaboration at EU level in those areas. I think it's so important to remain at the forefront. And we talk about digital technologies, but also health informatics, public services, digital public services, the power to assimilate and understand data for all kinds of modelling, climate, transport, so many areas of public need now can be met by that and require that power. So I'm keen that we remain at the forefront of that. And then Deputy Timmons, you're absolutely right about the collaboration with the industry and how we make sure that that lands and that succeeds. Some of the things that I want to embed into are certainly offers ancillary supports for, say, postgraduate students, things like communications modules, enterprise modules, I think start-ups and spin-outs should be encouraged as well. So, yes, we want to research citations and papers and publications, but we also want to see campus companies, you know, beginning to return and come out again, and that enterprise lift. And there are some collaborations, like iBio and UL is one, collaboration with industry. I'd like to develop more programmes which are co-partners. Thank you, Minister. Deputy Daly. Thank you, Minister, again. And I suppose the importance of this is in speaking to this group of people who are involved in this project in Galway, one of the points they made is that there are many institutions in the United States who in the current climate are looking for basis in the European Union. And I think Ireland has this opportunity. I know we talk about the threat of tariffs and the difficulties in getting new industry here. So we'll hold our existing industry, but the concern is down the road that research and development will move back away from us. And I think there's an opportunity to reverse this flow, get this expertise from world-class universities in the United States to base the research hubs within Ireland. And by the way, they have assured me they can base their hub anywhere. I mean, I mentioned Banner-Slow, it's in my own constituency. So, but they would be happy to base anywhere and with technology, with the use of high-grade computers, they can carry out the research in collaboration with institutions here in Ireland. Thank you, Minister. Thank you, Debbie Daly. No, okay, Minister. Yeah, so, thanks, Kerry. So, I suppose, on two fronts, I mean, I absolutely agree that part of the response to the challenges posed by a changing trade and tariff situation, and we are, I think, entering an age of de-globalisation. We also have many other factors to contend with, and it is important that we maintain that industrial base and that knowledge economy that we fought so hard to develop over the last 30, 40 years. The key to that is the knowledge economy, investment in research, innovation and education, and I think in terms of stickiness. So, it's easier to move a factory offshore than it is to move a research hub, because the deeper dive you perform within the area, the harder it is to just replicate and move around elsewhere, and we do need to continue and absolutely invest, and that's why I'm working on that. In terms of mobile talent, I think talent is our greatest natural asset, and we have some wonderful talent in this island, and it's my job to nurture that, foster it, support it, and grow it through investment in education and all that we're doing, but also I'm mindful that there are many who may be considering relocation from the United States, perhaps, or from other jurisdictions, due to changing the trends in their own home states, and I have put out recently a global talent initiative, which is a call, to invite researchers from outside of Ireland, including the United States, to consider relocating here, and those people typically come in two categories, it's what we call rising stars, young people on the up that have made a name for themselves, but are still forging their path to academia, and then established people who have a very strong record, but both types bring excitement, energy, often funding with them, and can really contribute significantly to the development of, I'm going to single out Seamus Davis, an academic and quantum computing in UCC, I visited his lab recently, he works in partnership with the Tindall Institute, amazing world-leading research and semiconductors, which is a key part of the global supply chain, and a key part of Irish industry, he came through his initiatives such as that a number of years ago, so one or two people can actually bring such a critical mass with them, that they can actually develop an entire new hub, an entire new research programme collaboration, so that all that, I also intend to announce funding for a new research infrastructure programme in the next number of weeks, which will set the foundation layer for equipment, laboratories, computing power, and all the base layer that's required to build this, because we need a solid foundation to let this work happen, but it's critical to our economy and society that we should do so. Thank you, Minister.