Newton Calls for Better Communication on R&D Support
At a meeting held yesterday between DUP MLA, Robin Newton and senior Invest Northern Ireland officials, there was a recognition that more effective means was necessary to encourage and engage the business community in what has been described at the ‘life blood’ of industrial innovation, Research & Development (R&D).
Tracey Maharg, Managing Director Innovation and Capability Development and John Thompson, Innovation, Research & Technology, met with Robin Newton DUP MLA and acknowledged that the level of Research and Development projects were too low and there is especially a need to increase the number of projects from the Small to Medium Enterprise (SME) sector.
The MLA said: “While there may well be schemes available for local businesses to use in addressing the need for more focused R&D, there is a need to make the schemes more “user friendly” as the complex nature of some support programmes is off putting for small firms.
“I have put it to Invest Northern Ireland that there is an urgent need for existing availability of R&D help to be better explained and therefore utilized more often,” he said. We need to convince SMEs of the need for R&D and this will only happen when they can see their way through the maze of financial and other available scheme support from the job creation agency.
Robin Newton said that R&D is declining overall, with official figures recording that the UK’s spending for the year 2004-2005 was down for the first time since 1997, despite an emphasis on the importance of innovation in general and science and technology in particular.
Mr. Newton said that further work is needed and backed a recent ‘think tank’ report – published in November 2005 - which suggests the creation of a business culture which ‘is infused by the spirit of innovation’, specifically with a reduction in the corporate tax rate in Northern Ireland, which should, it suggests, be no more than 10.00%.
