Registration has now opened for the InterTradeIreland 2010 Innovation Conference which will take place in University College Dublin on Monday 28 June and Tuesday 29 June. The theme of this 2-day international conference is Building Collaborative Networks for Innovation.

Professor Woody Powell, Professor of Education at Stanford University, California, a renowned expert in the area of networks, will be the guest speaker at both days of the conference. Professor Powell is engaged in research on the processes through which knowledge is transferred across organisations and the role of networks in facilitating or hindering innovation.

Professor Woody Powell, Stanford University

There is a critical need to create innovation networks at a national level and to invest in their evolution in order to optimise collaboration and facilitate engagement between all relevant stakeholders including industrial partners, state agencies and policy makers, venture capitalists, universities, researchers SMEs and businesses.

The broad objective of this conference is to provide a view from key stakeholders and leading academic experts on the benefits and successes of collaborative networks as drivers and facilitators of innovation. The development and expansion of innovation networks have a major role to play in sustaining economic renewal on the island of Ireland and in particular in developing Ireland’s emergence as an ‘innovation island’ which is recognised as a global innovation hub. The development and expansion of innovation networks have a major role to play in sustaining economic renewal on the island of Ireland and in particular in developing Ireland’s emergence as an ‘innovation island’ which is recognised as a global innovation hub.

Day 1 of the conference will focus on the theme of Building Collaborative Networks for Innovation in a Knowledge Economy. It will blend contemporary thinking on collaborative networks with lessons learnt from key stakeholders. An expert panel, chaired by Dr Chris Horn, co-founder and former CEO, IONA Technologies, will deliver short presentations and discuss this topic in detail. The panel members are Barry O’Leary, IDA Ireland, Martin Curley, Intel Corporation, Gina Quin, Dublin Chamber of Commerce, John O’Dea, Crospon, Hubert Henry, Bord na Móna and Peter Fitzgerald, Randox.

Day 2 of the conference will focus on Academic Reflections and Future Challenges . It will bring together a community of researchers from Ireland and internationally, from various research disciplines, who will explore and examine current research on the topic of innovation networks including the role that multi-national companies have to play in innovation networks. The output from this day will assist in strengthening innovation studies in Ireland and contribute of relevant strategy and policy formation and innovation best practice.

All are welcome to attend on either or both days of the conference which is free to attend.

The innovation conference, organised by NovaUCD and UCD's Innovation Research Unit, is being delivered as part of the InterTradeIreland All-island Innovation Programme which aims to promote and encourage innovation across the island of Ireland. This Programme is organised by InterTradeIreland, Queen’s University Belfast, NovaUCD and the Centre for Innovation and Structural Change at NUI Galway.

This conference forms part of the TCD/UCD Innovation Alliance Programme of Events.

Click here for further information on the conference, including registration.

Twitter: #iticonf10

LinkedIn: http://events.linkedin.com/Building-Collaborative-Networks/pub/322672

ENDS

18 May 2010

For further information contact: Micéal Whelan, NovaUCD, t: +353 1 716 3712, e: miceal.whelan@ucd.ie.