Fifteen companies and higher education institutions have been shortlisted for the inaugural US-Ireland Research Innovation Awards.
The awards are a joint initiative between the American Chamber of Commerce and the Royal Irish Academy (RIA), and will "recognise excellence in research innovation " as a result of US foreign direct investment in Ireland.
Awards will be presented in three categories: an Irish SME or start-up with US links, an Irish higher education institution or research institute with collaborative links with the US corporate sector in Ireland and the corporate award for innovation in the Irish operations of a US company.
The five companies shortlisted in the multinational category are Boston Scientific, IBM Research, Intel Ireland, Microsoft and Xilinx Ireland.
In the SME category, Aerogen, Alimentary Health, Kinesis Health Technologies, NVMdurance and ResMed Sensor Technologies were shortlisted.
Dublin City University, Maynooth University, University College Dublin, the National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training and University College Cork were shortlisted in the HEI category.
Judging panel
The judging panel included KPMG head of innovation Niall Campbell, Science Foundation Ireland director of programmes Darrin Morrissey, Knowledge Transfer Ireland director Alison Campbell, and Dervilla Donnelly, emeritus professor of organic chemistry at UCD.
Peter Kennedy, chair of the assessment panel and secretary for international relations and policy at the RIA said: "From SMEs to multinationals, from biotech to software, innovation with a global perspective is pervasive, making it extremely difficult for the evaluation panel to shortlist just five projects per category."
American Chamber chief executive Mark Redmond said the innovation created by the 700 US companies and their 130,000 people in Ireland places this country at the heart of "transformative developments in sectors such as ICT, healthcare and data". He said: "In the chamber we see every day the positive impact of US companies in Ireland both on our economy and society."
The awards will be presented at the American Chamber’s dinner on May 15.
