In Ireland, supporting business innovation is an important national priority. The new National Strategy on Research and Innovation, Impact 2030, identified innovation as a significant driver of enterprise success. Successive Irish governments have committed to investing in research centres, business incubators and accelerators, as well as business development support agencies.
But innovation failures or abandoned projects receive far less attention. Approximately one in 10 Irish businesses abandon or suspend an innovation project, and this figure increases with firm size. We know very little about these failures in terms of decision processes or lessons learnt. Most people conflate failure with fault, and few individuals or organisations understandably trumpet their failures.
From RTÉ Radio 1's Beo ar Éigean, Siún, Sinéad and Áine talk about the fear of failure - and the fear of success - which stops us in our tracks. This may be indicative of a national preference for targeting marginal improvements. An interesting suggestion from our study was to dedicate a proportion of public procurement to SMEs and start-ups, and thus potentially support more disruptive innovation.
Enterprise Ireland’s Action Plan for Women in Business prioritises increasing the participation of women in entrepreneurship and business leadership. While Ireland’s childcare crisis adversely impacts individual female entrepreneurs in reaching their potential, it also has far-reaching consequences for innovation, business success, job creation and economic growth in Ireland. For instance, Ireland's gender gap is the highest for self-employment in Europe.
In our report, concerns were raised that national and international funding strategies focusing on research prioritisation areas and ‘missions’ do not necessarily lend themselves to funding disruptive innovations. There is also a perception that longshot projects are being captured by established large companies and less ambitious research projects. While these projects may be beneficial in themselves, they may not meet the ambition of the original funding instrument.