An increasing challenge facing academia and business is the commercialisation of scientific research.

The Fujitsu Innovation Gathering conference, taking place at Croke Park this Thursday, aims to look at the challenges facing academia and companies engaging in R&D, and how collaboration can help to overcome the difficulty translating research into commercial activity.

The one-day conference will bring together industry strategists, leading academia and State agencies to find out how Ireland can best position itself to maximise innovation and R&D collaboration to drive commercial success, create jobs and boost inward investment.

World leader
Fujitsu Ireland chief executive Regina Moran said Ireland has an opportunity to position itself as a leader on the world stage, adding "this conference will be a collaboration of minds from which we aim to find out what must be done to take R&D from collaboration to commercialisation".

The conference will look at how to extrapolate R&D value and turn technology into tangible business solutions, the future of big data, data protection and cloud security.

Speakers at the event include Minister for Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation Richard Bruton, IDA chief executive Barry O'Leary, Digital Enterprise Research Institute director Prof Stefan Decker, and Prof Mark Ferguson, chief scientific adviser to the Government.