2.2 Summaries of Panel Reports

Summaries of the findings of the eight Technology Foresight Panels are set out in the following pages. The summaries highlight the key technologies influencing the development of the sectors and the Panels’ recommendations regarding actions needed to improve Ireland’s ability to anticipate or benefit from whatever technological developments that may occur in the time horizon to 2015. In order to understand the full context of the recommendations the reader should refer to each specific Panel report.

The recommendations concern technological and related matters and are a mix of the long term and short term actions required. Some recommendations are for consideration by individual Government departments, agencies, other public and private sector bodies or by the sector itself.

Chemical and Pharmaceutical Panel Summary

Recommendations

• Establish a new Rapid Response Regulation strategy to ensure that Ireland is the most favourable location in the world in which to meet the properly stringent national and international regulatory requirements for the industry

• Introduce a research voucher (tax credit) scheme to enable firms to purchase strategic or applied research in designated Centres of Excellence or in universities and colleges (the Techmart scheme)

• Enterprise Ireland to make nurturing the growth of the indigenous chemical and pharmaceutical sector among its highest priorities (the Home Grown strategy)

• Introduce a co-ordinated awareness campaign to increase the level of understanding of the career opportunities in the chemical/pharmaceutical industry (the Hearts and Minds strategy).

Strategic Technologies

• Advanced conventional and biological synthesis

• Advanced formulation/delivery and packaging systems

• Flexible, clean and efficient processes

• Process automation and monitoring

• Information and Communications Technologies to manage the regulatory and customer Interfaces.

Enabling Policies/Mechanisms

• The Department of Environment and Local Government to establish a task force, including representatives of the relevant State agencies and the sector, to ensure that the Rapid Response Regulation strategy is enacted. It is a strongly held view of the sector that this strategy, requiring relatively small expenditure, has the potential to secure a very significant competitive advantage for Ireland

• The Department of Finance to make tax code changes to introduce the research voucher concept

• Establish centres of excellence in the following five strategic technology areas:
  • Advanced conventional and biological synthesis

  • Advanced formulation/delivery and packaging systems

  • Flexible, clean and efficient processes

  • Process automation and monitoring

  • ICTs to manage the regulatory and customer interfaces.

• Ensure third level departments which are responsive to the needs of the sector attain the highest standards in teaching and fundamental research by permitting the HEA to match the spend by the sector in those departments

• Enterprise Ireland to establish an advisory group made up of members from the sector to advise it on implementing the measures contained in the Home Grown strategy

• The sector to fund from its own resources, by an agreed contribution from the members of the sector, a nationally co-ordinated programme to implement the Hearts and Minds strategy. The Institute of Chemistry of Ireland, the sector’s professional body, to act immediately to initiate this process.

Information and Communications Technology panel Summary

Recommendations

As the pace of technological change in this area is so rapid, the recommendations focus on empowering the best people, encouraging a ‘fast follower’ mentality and ensuring that all citizens have the skills necessary to participate fully in the information and knowledge society.

• Introduce change at all educational levels to foster creativity and imagination from an early age, to improve the teaching of science and mathematics at all levels, and to generate a commitment by all to life-long learning

• Generate a critical mass of world class research and output in topics which are in the forefront of research at any given time. The best individual researchers will require support to establish this critical mass. Industry-Higher Education consortia should identify the relevant research topics on a regular basis

• To develop world class capabilities requires the best professional researchers encouraged by a visionary environment, with the necessary financial rewards and properly resourced with equipment and support staff.

Strategic Technologies

Areas of strategic importance, in the short term, and their technology drivers, include:

• Networks: high-speed, broadband, wireless, mobile; voice/data convergence; DSP; network management; switching (e.g. photonic); Internet 2

• Systems:distributed, parallel; engineering for reliability, predictability and security

• Components: integration, miniaturisation, low power consumption; novel architectures

• User Interfaces: multi-sensory, wearable, virtual reality; artificial intelligence; human language understanding and synthesis

• Applications: information access, retrieval, analysis, filtering and management; best practice in exploitation and delivery; bioinformatics; simulation and modelling; telemedicine and health informatics; distributed working; supply chain management; computer-based training.

Enabling Policies/Mechanisms

• Establishment of a Centre for Advanced Informatics. In addition, build on the existing strengths in the National Microelectronics Research Centre in a number of key areas

• Ensure more aggressive venture capital that drives rates of growth in Irish companies comparable to that of the leaders in the field

• Investment in the telecommunications infrastructure to make Ireland a ‘wired country’

• Explore the opportunities to involve Irish people working abroad (the ‘diaspora’), particularly in the US, in building an innovation structure around ICT

• Develop more systematic ways for obtaining and disseminating market intelligence on those areas of technology which are showing good commercial potential around the world.

Materials and Manufacturing Processes Panel Summary

Recommendations

• Manufacturing companies should develop a high value-added capability in materials-based products and related services coupled with the ability to use virtual manufacturing

• Industrial research and development spend in the sector must be increased. Additional tax incentives are needed to raise fiscal support for R&D to the levels experienced in our peer countries

• Further develop ‘green’ manufacturing knowledge and processes where appropriate

• World class centres of excellence in design, materials applications and related engineering competencies should be developed for the outsourcing of research by industry

• There is a need to develop a multidisciplinary approach to research and development based on the core engineering sciences. This needs to ensure that team building, communication, innovation and creativity are instilled in students throughout the entire educational system from primary, through secondary and up to tertiary level

• The Programmes in Advanced Technologies (PATs) should be refined and developed in strategic areas, such as materials and advanced manufacturing technologies, to help the implementation of these recommendations

Strategic Technologies

• Design with new and advanced materials, including bio-materials, smart materials and reusable/renewable materials

• Processing/fabrication of new and advanced materials

• Integration and miniaturisation technologies

• Exploitation of ICT, telematics and logistics, together with associated social and behavioural sciences, in order to facilitate the development of virtual enterprises

Enabling Policies/Mechanisms

• Manufacturing companies and their suppliers to invest in information and communications technologies and move towards products and services that add value

• Improve linkages between industry and third level. Industry should develop relationships with the centres of excellence in R&D and with centres of expertise in the third level sector such as the Programmes in Advanced Technologies (PATs)

• Strengthen and focus the relevant PATs to enable them to respond to the Foresight recommendations and identify areas outside of existing expertise which need to be addressed

• Ensure that industry has the appropriate long term ‘green’ strategy

• Introduce product design and ‘green’ industrial design courses at third level

• Provide focused advice on the legislative requirements for, and assistance and incentives to companies to move towards, ‘green’ manufacturing

• Attract product design companies to set up in Ireland and increase the expertise available in this field

• Industrial development agencies should use effective R&D and innovation strategies as a major indicator of success justifying further support.

Health and Life Sciences Panel Summary

Recommendations

• Ireland will need to invest even further in its greatest asset, that is, its population of young and well educated people, and it will need to attract the talented members of the Irish diaspora, if it is to maximise the benefits from knowledge-based industries in the coming decades

• The health and life sciences sector, which includes pharmaceuticals and healthcare, chemicals, food and drink, agriculture, forestry and fisheries, and environmental management, accounts for more than IR£10 billion of exports (more than 30 per cent of the total) and employs more than 50,000 people. For these and other reasons (e.g. tourism) Ireland is, more than most countries, a ‘biological economy’

• A single complex technology, Biotechnology, is radically influencing the global development of the health and life science industries. It is predicted that the market for these industries will rise from e40 billion in 1995 to e250 billion by the year 2005 and support in the region of three million jobs in Europe. Ireland is very well placed to participate in the biotechnology revolution

• The impact of biotechnology is most obvious in pharmaceuticals, chemicals, agriculture and food. The Irish pharmaceutical industry is a vital national asset. It is dominated by multinationals and links Ireland to the international pharmaceutical industry, the industry which has led the biotechnology revolution. Nine of the top ten multinational pharmaceutical companies have major manufacturing operations in Ireland. Ireland must adapt to biotechnology as biotechnology revolutionises the global biological economy, especially the pharmaceutical, chemical and agrifood sectors

• The Irish Government should immediately invest, on a realistic scale, in a co-ordinated biotechnology programme to establish strong links between the third level colleges and industry, agriculture and the financial and services sectors. Significant components of Irish industry and agriculture will be moved up the value chain by exploiting world class R&D, much of it led by scientists and technologists recruited back to Ireland from the Irish diaspora. A world class biotechnology infrastructure, strongly rooted in Irish brain power, can and should be created in Ireland by reforming and developing the current system (pioneered by BioResearch Ireland with limited resources). The new infrastructure will ensure that world class research is carried out by world class biotechnologists and will lay the basis for Biotechnology Clustering in Ireland. If this programme is not established, Ireland will not only fail to benefit from the new biotechnology in terms of a large number of new, high quality, high added value jobs, but many existing jobs in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries, the food and drink industries and in agriculture will be jeopardised.

Strategic Technologies

• Genomics

• DNA chips, biomaterials

• Bioinformatics

• Proteomics

• Gene Chip Technology

• Knockouts & Transgenics

• Robotics

• Biosensors

• Bio-remediation

• Novel Instrumentation Technology

• Drug Delivery

• New Diagnostics

Enabling Policies/Mechanisms

The new ‘Irish Biotechnology Investment Programme’ requires five related strategic sub-programmes to take research from the laboratory to the market:

Natural Resources Panel Summary

The Science and Technology Foresight Report on Natural Resources covers the following three sectors:

• Agri-Food Industry

• Marine Industry

• Forestry Industry

There is a growing need to build up the core competencies required to ensure:

• Ireland’s future competitiveness in agricultural production and in the manufacture of innovative food products that meet increasingly exacting consumer requirements

• the sustainable exploration, exploitation and management of the marine resources

• the competitive production of wood and non-wood products from Irish forests together with the economic, environmental and social sustainability of the national forest estate.

With the objective of putting in place the necessary core competencies the Natural Resources Panel recommends that immediate priority be given to developing the following strategic technologies and enabling policies/mechanisms.

Agri-Food Industry

Strategic Technologies

• Agricultural production and food processing technologies and systems that meet consumer demands for guaranteed food safety, assured freshness and consistent quality. Such technologies include: ingredient technology; food microstructure, flavour and quality; minimal processing technologies; pathogen control systems, including risk analysis methodologies; high pressure technology; food irradiation; robotics and information technology

• Economically competitive and environmentally sustainable farm production and food processing technologies and systems, including reduced input farming systems; waste reduction and management technologies; environmental modelling; risk assessment methodologies and information technology

• The capacity to monitor, evaluate and harness appropriate developments in biotechnology in crops and livestock production and food processing, including: diagnostics; genetic and breeding technologies; environmental impact assessment and risk analysis methodologies

• Market intelligence involving the development of consumer behavioural models to project food demands.

Enabling Policies/Mechanisms

To establish durable national capabilities with the necessary critical mass in these rapidly developing technologies, the Panel recommends that the following enabling policies/mechanisms be put in place:

• There is a critical need for a national manpower programme for science and technology, including a professional career structure for researchers and mechanisms to ensure more effective research training and greater mobility of researchers

• Establishment of centres of excellence with the necessary critical mass of the next generation of scientists and technologists in areas of vital strategic importance, including biotechnology

• Grants and tax incentives for the agri-food industry need to be directed more to building the core strategic, management, marketing, scientific/technological and innovative capabilities, both in-company and through joint ventures between industry and public research and educational institutions

• Arrangements need to be put in place to ensure greater industry ‘ownership’ of public research programmes, with particular regard to co-operative priority-setting, more effective inter-institutional collaborative research programmes and securing a satisfactory return on investment

• Product development research should be undertaken by private companies, while public research programmes should concentrate on technology development and public good issues.

Marine Industry

Strategic Technologies

While highlighting the broad range of technologies necessary to support the development of the marine industry, the Panel recommends that priority be given to building up the following strategic technologies:

• Food processing, including food safety and quality technologies and the application of biotechnology

• Information technology, including remote sensing, geographical information systems (GIS), modelling/forecasting and data management

• Biotechnology, including disease detection and management, bio-screening of marine organisms for bio-active products and food processing

• Sustainable harvesting and production systems, including cleaner production technologies, fish-finding technology, net design and manufacture, cage and tank design

• Sensor development, including materials technology, instrumentation development and anti-fouling techniques

• Wave energy, including power take-off and control, and structural design and mooring

• Maritime transport, including inter-modal management.

Enabling Policies/Mechanisms

To establish durable national capabilities with the necessary critical mass in these rapidly developing technologies, the Panel recommends that the following enabling policies/mechanisms be put in place:

• The implementation of appropriate mechanisms to support critical mass, to maintain international competitiveness and to underpin continuity (at least in the medium term) of established and required cores of expertise

• Support for targeted education, training, R&D and support infrastructure

• The development of efficient mechanisms for technology transfer, leading to increased R&D applications/uptake in SMEs and more effective industry-research institute co-operation.

Forestry Industry

Strategic Technologies

To ensure the competitive production of wood and non-wood products from Irish forests and the economic, environmental and social sustainability of the national forest estate, the Panel recommends that priority be given to building up the following strategic technologies:

• Wood science, materials science and applied engineering skills

• Genetic and other biotechnologies to improve the properties of Irish timber

• Information technology and communication skills

• Environmental management skills

• Planning and appraisal models

• Advanced marketing capabilities and skills.

Enabling Policies/Mechanisms

To establish durable national capabilities with the necessary critical mass in these rapidly developing technologies, the Panel recommends that the following enabling policies/mechanisms be put in place:

• The consolidation of a management and co-ordinating mechanism for the application of R&D

• The development of education modules and information systems to promote awareness and skills, in the use of wood, among architects and engineers

• Investment in information technology to provide and enable effective technology transfer.

Common Strategic Technologies - Agri Food, Marine and Forestry Industries

• Capacity to monitor, evaluate and harness advances in biotechnology

• Production and processing technologies and systems that meet ever exacting consumer demands

• Competitive and sustainable production and processing technologies and systems

• Information technology and communication skills.

Enabling Policies/Mechanisms

To establish durable national capabilities with the necessary critical mass in these rapidly developing technologies, the Panel recommends that the following enabling policies/mechanisms be put in place:

• A national manpower programme to address the following issues:
  • building a science and technology capacity to underpin developments in the agri-food, marine and forestry industries

  • providing a professional career structure for researchers

  • ensuring mobility of science and technology personnel within and between the public and private sectors

• Centres of Excellence, involving both the public and private sectors, and with the critical mass of scientists and technologists

• More effective mechanisms for technology transfer, both in terms of R&D adaptation and transfer to end users.

Energy Panel Summary

Recommendations

• Establishment of an energy research, development and demonstration programme which is well resourced, clearly defined and of finite duration. This programme should focus on the identified key technologies.

Strategic Technologies

Technologies I and II are new technologies. Ireland has existing strengths in these technologies and for strategic energy and commercial reasons they must be developed and exploited. Technologies III and IV are existing technologies whose enhanced uptake will address some of Ireland’s commitment under the Kyoto Protocol.

Enabling Mechanisms

• Collaboration between Government, enterprise, State agencies, education, training and research institutions, energy suppliers and international energy players

• The Minister for Public Enterprise convene an Action Panel to secure implementation of the recommendations and report to the Government on the matter

• A fully costed, clearly defined implementation programme be designed

• The recommendations of the report be integrated into the policy and strategy statements of the relevant Government departments and State agencies.

Transport and Logistics Panel Summary

Recommendations

• Introduce greater strategic co-ordination into the whole of the Transport and Logistics sectors. Responsibility for road, sea, air and rail transport in all their aspects should be centralised in one Government department

• Integrate national/regional planning powers to one national authority

• Undertake more research into all aspects of transport and logistics - technical, economic and social

• Promote Ireland as an international centre of excellence for transport and logistics systems

• Begin planning now for the problems of urban congestion by 2015

• Establish a forum for debating and discussing issues critical to the development of the Transport and Logistics sectors.

Strategic Technologies

• Intermodality of transport systems

• Telematics for transport systems

• Road design and maintenance technology

• Demand management

• Land use development

Enabling Policies/Mechanisms

• Appointment of a Minister for Transport, incorporating Logistics

• Establish a Government/Business Forum for National Transport and Logistics

• The Transport and Logistics industry to establish an umbrella body to discuss all issues critical to the development of the sector

• Ensure that at least one global player in transport and logistics systems establish its European operations centre in Ireland.

Construction and Infrastructure Panel Summary

Recommendations

• Change the Culture of Construction:
  Change the external and internal perception, culture and practices of construction and infrastructure such that they are more appropriate to their national and European role

• Information and Communication Technology:
  Introduce customised and integrated information technology throughout the construction process

• Science, Technology and Innovation Centre:
  Establish a permanent centre/focus for access and transfer of new and best practice technologies, with a strong element of industrial ownership

• Improve Competitiveness:
  Improve competitiveness of the process so that customer and society’s expectations for efficiency, quality, performance and life-cycle value are satisfied

• Increase Tradeability:
  Develop and sustain the tradeability of knowledge based and niche elements of construction

• Sustainable Development:
  Progressively improve the contribution to the inherent sustainability of the construction process and the built environment. Develop associated technologies, skills and practices

• Materials Technology:
  Track and optimise the benefits to construction and infrastructure from advances in materials technology.

Strategic Technologies

There are issues and forces that are technology driven and those that are technology dependent. The technology driven are:

• The potential of ICT to influence and change the way the construction industry will be structured and operate in 2015 and the type of infrastructure it will be producing

• Developments in materials technology will have the potential for a new generation of smart materials and components based on new sciences such as biotechnology

• Developments in manufacturing technology will stimulate prefabrication, use of robotics, mechanisation and tool technology

The technology dependent forces are:

• The sustainability of the construction process and of the built environment

• The health, safety and environmental friendliness of the process

• The increasing competitiveness of the industry

Enabling Policies/Mechanisms

These policies/mechanisms are grouped under economic, operational, social and technological. Significant examples are as follows:

Economic: Provide for the consequences of reduced growth rates between now and 2015 and for the replacement of EU Structural Funds with private finance as envisaged in the Public Private Partnership. In view of the mobility of capital for infrastructural projects provision of a more efficient planning and regulatory process is necessary.

Operational: An attitude of excellence and quality must be fostered throughout the process and the progressive integration of the various participants will contribute to this policy. Higher standards of quality and consumer protection will require registration of the principal participants. Continuing education and life long learning will be necessary ingredients.

Social: Insufficient appreciation of the role of construction in underpinning social and economic life needs correction. The provision of affordable housing, particularly in urban centres, is urgently needed together with an efficient public transport system. Employment conditions and a career framework need to be improved to attract better qualified personnel into the industry.

Technological: Extend the status that currently applies to manufacturing industry to the wider construction industry in terms of grant aid and research and development assistance.

Support the implementation of the recommendations of the Strategic Review of the Construction Industry. Give priority to opening a dialogue with the Department of the Environment and Local Government and the Forum for the Construction Industry.

2.3 Key Strategic Technologies

The following section presents, in matrix format, an overview of the strategic technologies, underpinning the industrial sectors represented by the eight Technology Foresight Panels.

Note: This is not an exhaustive table of the strategic/emerging technologies as identified by the Panels. It is necessary to refer to the Panel reports for a complete listing.