When Sir Reg Empey, Sean Farren and Mary Harney met in Newry on 24 January 2000 in their respective capacities as Ministers for enterprise, Trade and Investment, Higher ducation and Training, and Tánaiste, to discuss economic issues of mutual benefit, it was the beginning of an economic drive which would have meaningful and lasting impact on both sides of the border.,br> While Minister Harney has moved to a new portfolio, and Minister Farren stood down in the 2007 election, Sir Reg Empey, in his current capacity as Minister for Employment and Learning is still playing a key role in ensuring that people from all strata of life in Northern Ireland can equip themselves with the skills and capabilities necessary to generate wealth for themselves and for their community.

Encouraging Entrepreneurship

Minister Empey is well aware that industrial firsts are not uncommon in Northern Ireland.
“We have a good track record,” he says, blaming the troubles of past decades for suffocating a lot of that drive. One thing is certain; there is no shortage of the right people, we just need to encourage them and afford them the opportunity to be enterprising. Our task now is to reignite The spirit of creativity through providing business and technical education and training which will help generate an entrepreneurial mindset and culture within our society. Education is a tool of economic development; a most powerful tool when used to best effect.”

Global Cometitiveness

Minister Empey is well aware that to be sustainable, businesses must equip themselves to compete in a global marketplace. He has sought out economic development best practice and has taken note of how North Carolina has adopted a holistic approach to handle its transition from a once-thriving manufacturing base to ‘new age’ industries.
“The work being done in North Carolina is an excellent example of how interaction between Further and Higher Education and the business community can raise skills levels, attract inward investment and spur home grown investment. Northern Ireland’s past dependence on the public sector as a source of employment is changing; we need to look at new and innovative ways of generating economic activity; education and skills hold the key. It’s all about idea generation, across the board. We need to turn our universities into hothouses of practical applications; the universities themselves are conscious of this too. Fifteen years ago they were seen as the ivory towers; now they have transformed themselves, producing spin outs from their incubators and very focused on economics, actively linking their applications to attract public and private money.”

Harnessing Skills

Skills development is not only applicable at third level. Minister Empey is keen to provide free, impartial and professional advantage to all young people in Northern Ireland. He would love to see an open careers service on all main streets providing enterprise advice to all – school pupils, career changers, and women returning to work.
He is also looking forward to the All- Island Skills Conference which will take place in Northern Ireland in the autumn. While a lot has been done in recent years, there are still very high levels on economic inactivity with many people not working.
“We need to give them hope and the skills to help them find work,” he says. “Be that through employment or enterprise creation.”
Honing life skills begins at an early age, according to Catriona Ruane, Northern Ireland’s Minister for Education.
“Children are learning from the day they are born, through playing, through creativity. It’s all about flexible learning,” she says. “That’s why we are now reviewing early years education in Northern Ireland – to give power to the teachers, to broaden themes, to inject creativity, flexibility and play into the curriculum.”

Life Long Learning

Minister Ruane believes in educating for life long learning. She too knows that it holds the key to the future economic prosperity of Northern Ireland. Her first brave move was to do away with the eleven plus examination. “It’s wrong to decide a child’s future through two one hour tests,” she says.

"Adjustment was necessary. We have to look further ahead and ask why six thousand young people are leaving school without the minimum number of GCSEs; why twelve thousand young people are leaving without engineering or maths; or why the levels of literacy and innumeracy are totally unacceptable. That’s more important for the future. It’s better to inject self esteem into our young people to give them futures than have them worry about their eleven plus. Self esteem has taken a great fall over the past decades, yet there are incredible skills within our society. It’s only when we get over the generations of discrimination and break the cycle of disadvantage; that we’ll see change. It’s beginning to happen. Making our education system more dynamic, more entrepreneurial will encourage young people to stay in the system longer and ignite their minds with entrepreneurial fl air. The type of collaboration that is now developing within and between sectors - primary, post primary and further education – heralds well for the future.”

Progress

Preparing for that future has already begun if progress on the entrepreneurial front in Northern Ireland is anything to go by. The 2006 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) for Northern reported that the rate of early stage entrepreneurship was 3.7% - that one in every twenty-five or 40,000 individuals were either starting or had started a new business venture. Yet it ranked in the bottom three of the twelve UK regions, a position largely unchanged since 2003. It also highlighted the fact, endorsed by Minister Empey, that the rate of early stage entrepreneurial activity in the UK by people born in Northern Ireland was 4.6%. Hence the ambition to try to attract these entrepreneurial mindsets back to home ground.

This is certainly the ambition of Northern Ireland Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Investment, Nigel Dodds, who knows that encouraging the creation of entrepreneurial ventures is central to moving the economy forward.
"It goes hand-in-hand with attracting foreign direct investment," he says.
"Each feeds off the other - FDI creates opportunities for second tier-suppliers, for start-up activity."

Forward Planning

Mindful of what is happening in global financial markets and the US economy he knows that it is important to think ahead.
“We must continue to build strong relationships with key figures in the US administration and business community. We must undertake the groundwork so that, when the US economy begins to rebound, Northern Ireland is clearly established in the thoughts of key business decision markers as a premier location for investments in high-value, knowledge-led projects.”

Investment in R&D and innovation is paramount to economic growth in any jurisdiction. Minister Dodds has taken note of the findings of the first Mapping Study of Research and Technology Development (RTD) Centres, north and south, which calls for measures to improve graduate education linkages, provide additional support for networking, encourage co-operative research clusters and provide a dedicated funding mechanism in both areas.
“Key stakeholders must engage in more robust interactions and focus on the growing need to develop the key people, skills, partnerships and networks for the innovation economy,” he says.

Eliminating Barriers

Bettering the economy is the Minister’s ultimate goal. Since taking up office he has looked around at best practice and taken on board what works best. However his aim is “not to emulate but to improve”. Eliminating some of the barriers to entrepreneurship such as self belief and fear of failure, which are not unique to Northern Ireland, is a key focus for the Minister and his agencies. “There is evidence of an improving situation but we still have a lot of work to do yet,” he adds. Evidence of this progress can be gleaned from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment’s economic development organisation - Invest Northern Ireland’s Performance Information Report for the five year period since its inception in 2002.

"Key stakeholders must

engage in more robust interactions and

focus on the growing need to develop the key people, skills, partnerships and networks for the innovation economy"
Nigel Dodds, Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Investment

This shows an increase in the rate of early-stage entrepreneurship in NI to 4.4% in 2007, resulting in a narrowing of the gap from 61.15 of the UK average in 2002, to 87% in 2007. “The volume and value of business start-ups is certainly on the increase. We have narrowed the gap with the UK average; we’re no longer bottom, we’ve overtaken the North East, Wales and Scotland. If we can increase the level of major investment by world class companies into Northern Ireland, it will give the much needed confidence boost to unleash the entrepreneurial creativity that lies inherent in this economy,” says Minister Dodds.