Some 15 companies and higher education institutions will battle it out at the US-Ireland Research Innovation Awards, taking place in Dublin this Friday.

The awards are a joint initiative between the American Chamber of Commerce and the Royal Irish Academy (RIA), and “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: IBM Research Ireland, Intel Research and Development Ireland, Microsoft Ireland, Analog Devices and Hewlett Packard Enterprise; Cloud and Analytic Services Innovation Centre.

In the SME category: AnaBio Technologies, Econiq, Texthelp and Transfermate were shortlisted.

Queen’s University Belfast, Dublin City University, Maynooth University, Tyndall National Institute, University College Dublin and the University of Limerick were shortlisted in the HEI category.

The awards will be presented at the American Chamber's dinner in Dublin on Friday. The event will also see film maker, broadcaster and musician Philip King presented with a lifetime achievement award.

Xilinx Ireland, Alimentary Health and Dublin City University were named the overall winners at last year's awards.

Cork firm Alimentary Health won for its patented Irish probiotic which is helping irritable bowel syndrome sufferers to deal with their condition; DCU won the HEI award for its collaboration with Allergan on fundamental research into how nerves control muscle activity and Xilinx Ireland took the overall award in the multinational category for a new class of programmable microchip which delivers increased computational performance at reduced power levels.