Under Project Ireland 2040 Government identified an ambition to build sectoral clusters of Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) at regional level. This ambition is being delivered through initiatives supporting the development of business-led clustering of competitive advantage. As one of the Government initiatives in this area, a fund for Regional Technology Clustering (RTCF) was announced in Budget 2019 and was administered by Enterprise Ireland on behalf of the Department of Business, Enterprise, Trade and Employment.
To date, 12 Educational Outreach Managers (EOMs) have been recruited by the Technical Universities and Institutes of Technology under the RTCF to incubate various sectoral clusters as per the map below:
The Educational Outreach Manager’s role has two primary functions:
1. To incubate the cluster and develop steering groups, engage with industry partners and encourage collaboration with the member companies.
2. To facilitate the education and research of sectoral cluster activity within their appointed institute.
To date each of the sectorally aligned Educational Outreach managers have engaged with over 3,000 SMEs and MNCs since their appointment.
Impacts and achievements of these 12 clusters over the 4 year period include:
- 766 members signed up as full members to the incubating clusters, 604 of these are industry members.
- 421 of these industry partners are Enterprise Ireland clients across the various sectors. 96 are IDA clients and 86 are Local Enterprise Office Clients. Overall, the cluster’s membership accounts for over 50,000 employees.
- Getting companies to work together so they can increase their exports and internalationalise their products more efficiently is a key impact of clusters. The 12 Educational Outreach Managers (EOMs) have assisted 233 collaborative projects with 27 SME and MNC collaborations over 4 years. They have managed 18 international cluster agreements as well as 54 EU projects such as horizon funding.
- There are 57 educational offerings coordinated by the EOMs with 40 cross cluster projects.
- Revenue streams for the incubating clusters are now emerging via membership, educational programmes for members and industry collaboration for EU funds and increase in exports for members to the value of €3.85m.
Clustering has been identified as an important enterprise policy tool in the Enterprise White Paper 2022. As a result, a National Clustering Unit has been set up by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment to develop a National Clustering framework in 2024.
See below for further details on the RTCF Clusters