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Ireland’s National Technological Park

Location:  3 miles from Limerick City (the capital of Ireland's Shannon Region) in the southwestern part of Ireland.¹

Map showing the location of Limerick from the University of Limerick.  Note that the other numbers on the map indicate 2=Dublin, 3=Cork, 4=Galway, 5=Belfast.  Photograph of the National Technological Park from the National Technological Park. 

Year Founded:  1984²

Focus:  "I.C.T. [Information and Communication Technologies], Materials and E-Business are the dominant sectors at the National Technological Park."³

Size:  650 acres, 80 companies, 30 buildings, 5,400 employees.⁴

Composition:  According to the Park's website,5 approximately 77 companies are involved in research and technology efforts in the Park currently.  Not all of these companies are true research companies, but of those that are not, many are administrative institutions closely related to research efforts or provide venture funding for Park companies.  The Park does not appear to intermingle services such as restaurants, hotels and banks in the Park itself, but these are available in the local area.

Notable Tenants: BT/Digifone, Dell, Worldcom

Governing Body: The Park is managed by Shannon Development (the Irish Government's Regional Development Company for Ireland's Shannon Region) in close partnership with the University of Limerick6  The Park also has a management company called The National Technological Park Plassey Ltd. which is responsible for determining tenant eligibility requirements and development guidelines for the Park.⁷

Universities: The Park is primarily allied with two of Ireland's "third level colleges,":⁸

• University of Limerick
• Limerick Institute of Technology

Infrastructure:  The Park has significant fiber infrastructure due to a fibre optic loop installed in the park by Shannon Development and Esat Business.9  Technology infrastructure includes: business voice, managed bandwidth, broadband L.A.N. interconnect, A.T.M. and frame relay, and Esat Net (e-mail, internet access and web hosting services, I.S.D.N. and dial-up connections).¹⁰

The park contains an incubator called "The Innovation Centre," that provides business development advice, grant, equity and early-stage funding, mentoring services, and advice on patenting and licensing.¹¹

One article describes Ireland's infrastructure as "a first world economy with third world infrastructure."¹²  A WorldCom executive indicates, "it is becoming 'increasingly difficult for companies to do business in Ireland' because of the cost of housing, the inadequate transport system, the lack of affordable office accommodation, wage inflation and skills shortages."¹³  The Irish government, however, is acutely aware of these problems and has instituted a IR£6 billion plan to transform road, bus and rail networks over the next six years.¹⁴

The National Technological Park is 18 miles from Shannon International Airport, 3 miles from rail connections to other Irish cities and is located along a major highway.¹⁵

Research Funding:  The Irish government dedicates at least 20% of its annual budget to the education system.¹⁶  Some of its other funding commitments include: over IR£50m to the Schools IT 2000 project, IR£317m to the Education Technology Investment Fund and over IR£710m to support basic research in Ireland through the establishment of Science Foundation Ireland as part of the Technology Foresight Fund.¹⁷

Financial Incentives:  Ireland offers attractive tax incentives to businesses that locate there.  A tax rate of 10% applies through December 31, 2002 for qualifying industries.  After that time, the tax rate will increase slightly to 12.5%.¹⁸

The Innovation Centre incubation program provides funding of up to IR£10,000 for alumni of the University of Limerick who are investigating starting a business in Ireland.¹⁹  Seed capital in the amount of IR£10,000 - 50,000 is available for businesses in exchange for a 30% equity stake in the company.²⁰

Measures of success:  The economic benefits to Ireland of its information technology economy have been substantial, creating numerous jobs in the region. 

While Ireland has done very well in investing in education and attracting foreign firms, its track record in stimulating Irish innovation is less impressive.  Two studies indicate that indigenous Irish firms demonstrate relatively low levels of innovative activity, attributed to the fact that Irish firms tend to have weak linkages to each other and to local universities.²¹  This lack of domestic research activity is problematic, as companies tend to do their most innovative research in their home countries.  For example, United States companies conduct only 10% of their R&D activities outside of the United States.  This leads one author to suggest that foreign investment will not dramatically change Irish domestic innovation rates.²²

REFERENCES

1. National Technological Park, "Location," http://www.shannon-dev.ie/ntp/info_2.html, visited December 11, 2001.

2. National Technological Park, "Introduction," http://www.shannon-dev.ie/ntp/info_1.html, visited December 11, 2001.

3. Id.

4. National Technological Park, "Information," http://www.shannon-dev.ie/ntp/info_1.html, visited December 11, 2001.

5. National Technological Park, "Tenants," http://www.shannon-dev.ie/ntp/tenants.html, visited December 11, 2001.

6. National Technological Park, "Location," http://www.shannon-dev.ie/ntp/info_2.html, visited December 11, 2001.

7. National Technological Park, "Physical Environment," http://www.shannon-dev.ie/ntp/info_3.html, visited December 11, 2001.

8. National Technological Park, "Services," http://www.shannon-dev.ie/ntp/info_4.html, visited December 11, 2001.

9. National Technological Park, "Services," http://www.shannon-dev.ie/ntp/info_4.html, visited December 11, 2001.

10. National Technological Park, "Telecomms," http://www.shannon-dev.ie/ntp/business_5.html, visited December 11, 2001.

11. The Innovation Centre, "Programme & Facilities," http://www.shannon-dev.ie/innovation/programmes.html, visited December 11, 2001.

12. "Not the best publicity," Electronic Times, Jan. 15, 2001, .

13. Id.

14. Id.

15. National Technological Park, "Location," http://www.shannon-dev.ie/ntp/info_2.html, visited December 11, 2001.

16. IDA Ireland, "Industry Sectors - Electronics - Why Ireland?," http://www.idaireland.com/docs/iselec.html, visited December 11, 2001.

17. Id.

18. IDA Ireland, "Why Ireland - Taxation," http://www.idaireland.com/docs/wit.html, visited December 11, 2001.

19. The Innovation Centre, "An Entrepreneurship Programme for University of Limerick Alumni," http://www.shannon-dev.ie/innovation/alumni.html, visited December 11, 2001.

20. Shannon Development, "Seed Capital Fund," http://www.shannon-dev.ie/investments/index.html, visited December 11, 2001.

21. Freeman, Chris, "National Systems of Innovation," http://www.comms.dcu.ie/flynnr/NATIONAL%20SYSTEMS%20OF%20INNOVATIO N.htm, visited December 11, 2001.

22. Id.