About ICE

Ireland lags behind other European countries in terms of overall business innovation. In 2003, Irish companies only reported 19.1% of sales coming from new or renewed products/services in the previous two years compared to the EU average of 22%.  (Source: Innobarometer 2002 EU)

Ireland is also well below the EU average for business expenditure on R&D as a proportion of GDP 0.87% versus 1.3%, and as a percentage of sales 3.3% versus 3.7%. (Source: European Innovation Scoreboard, 2003, CIS European Commission).

In the UK as a whole 99.8% of businesses, 55% employment and 51% of turnover is in SMEs. Northern Ireland has the biggest SME base accounting for nearly 80% of employment and 75% of turnover while in Scotland the figures are nearly 58% and 56% respectively (Source: National Statistics).

Find out more about the level of innovation in the region by downloading this report (pdf document)