US-Ireland R&D Partnership To Target £700 BILLION/€1TRILLION Nanotechnolody Industry

Nanotechnology is set to revolutionise the way we live over the next twenty years and will affect everything from the way we take medicines, have surgery, listen to music, use telecommunications and receive information. Predictions for Nanotechnology enabled products suggest a £700bn (€1 trillion) global industry by 2010. The island of Ireland is at the leading edge in many areas of research, particularly in healthcare and information technology that will be impacted by this growth in the next decade. Over the next two days, Belfast is the location for a major Nanotechnology conference involving leading research and industry experts from the US, Ireland and Northern Ireland exploring advances in nanobiotechnology, spintronics-nanomagnetism, nanoscale computation and self-assembly of nanomaterials aimed at the electronics, communications technology and biotech industries. The conference aims to identify significant collaborative research initiatives which can be supported by the three jurisdictions. Organised as part of the US-Ireland R&D Partnership, facilitated and sponsored by InterTradeIreland, National Science Foundation, Invest NI and Science Foundation Ireland, research experts from 10 leading US universities will join speakers from Queen’s University Belfast, the University of Ulster, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin City University, University College Dublin and Tyndall National Institute, University College Cork. Professor Jim McLaughlin, Director of the Nanotechnology and Integrated BioEngineering Centre at the University of Ulster, believes that there are very real business opportunities opening up through the research they are undertaking in everything from cell specific drug delivery to the development of lightweight, electrically powered mobility devices. “To benefit from these advances we need to invest more and to ensure that this investment is adding to a rich body of research which will quickly result in practical and commercial applications. That is why this unique collaboration with leading research universities in the US and our Universities is so important.” Reinforcing the value of international collaboration, Prof. Roger Whatmore, CEO Tyndall National Institute, University College Cork added: “Working with our colleagues in the US National Nanotechnology Initiative and throughout the island of Ireland we can share knowledge and create relationships that will facilitate the development of researchers and the rapid transfer into exploitation of new techniques and approaches. “The commercial exploitation of our collective research strengths will be enhanced by synergistic access to facilities and expertise in the scaling up of engineering and manufacturing processes within research centres, universities and industry. Government agencies have played a vital role in bringing this group together for the economic benefit of the three jurisdictions. Key to the success of this initiative will be the leveraging of government and industrial funding through efficient use of available facilities and expertise.” Emphasizing the importance of the area Dr Robert Bowman, Centre for Nanostructured Media, Queen’s University, Belfast noted that, “International public funding of Nanotechnology is growing rapidly. The US is spending $1.4 bn a year on this kind of research. A combined value of $300m has been invested over the last 5 years in Ireland, North and South. In Northern Ireland over 20 companies are actively supporting or are engaged in nanotechnology research including Seagate Technology, the UK’s largest nanotechnology employer. In Ireland several multinational companies are active in nanotechnology R&D including Intel, Hewlett Packard, Dow Corning Plasma Solutions, NT-MDT, Analog, Elan, GlaxoSmithKline, and Fournier Pharma”. It is conservatively estimated that the value of nanotechnology-enabled products and processes exported by indigenous companies and multinational companies based on the island will exceed £9bn (€13bn) by 2010, corresponding to more than 10% of the value of all exports in today’s terms.