Ireland is Best for Entrepreneurs and Business –  Europe’s most Entrepreneurial Country

Ireland is Best for Entrepreneurs and Business –  Europe’s most Entrepreneurial Country

Guess where the next Silicon Valley could emerge?  A recent article by Fortune says Ireland and names Dublin in the top-seven new cities worldwide for start-ups.

Measured on a per capita basis, we’ve got more venture funding available than in any other country in Europe and we’ve got more technology accelerator programmes. In fact, three of Europe’s top eight accelerator programmes are in Ireland.

It’s hardly surprising that this country is buzzing right now with entrepreneurial creativity and dynamism – from internet and gaming start-ups to new businesses launching products that aim to save lives and protect the environment.

According to the 2014 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report, Ireland is now the second most entrepreneurial of the top 15 countries in Europe, with increasing numbers of people, especially women, starting new businesses. Some 32,000-people started new businesses in Ireland in 2013 and one in every 11 adults in the country are engaged in some form of early-stage entrepreneurial

activity, according to the GEM Report. For a small country, with a total population of just 4.5 million, that’s a lot of drive and entrepreneurial ambition!

Ireland today is brimming with youthful energy. Over a third of the population is under 25 years of age.  And we welcome entrepreneurs and foreign-owned businesses from all over the world. Recently, Ireland introduced special visa programmes and Enterprise Ireland introduced a new International Start-up Fund to support entrepreneurs that want to start-up or relocate a business to Ireland.

We also do well in World Bank rankings, which put Ireland in the top-ten worldwide for ease of doing business. According to the World Bank, Ireland is fourth in the world for the availability of skilled labour and openness to new ideas; sixth for labour productivity; seventh for the availability of financial skills; and seventh for the flexibility and adaptability of people. So what are you waiting for?

A Friendly, Safe Environment

Ireland is a friendly, safe country. But don’t just take our word for it.

1.       In 2010, Lonely Planet named Ireland the friendliest country in the world.

2.       The Global Peace Index rates 158 nations worldwide on measures such as conflict, safety and security in society and militarization. In 2014, it ranked Ireland the 13th most peaceful place on Earth.

 In 2013, the OECD put Ireland in the top ten in its Better Life Index. In general, Irish people were more satisfied with their lives and had more positive experiences in a typical day than the OECD average. What’s more, the Irish scored second highest in the OECD for citizens volunteering time, giving money and helping a stranger.

The Irish have a huge maternal side and love to welcome or ‘mother’ new guests.  If staying with a host family, you’re sure to be treated as one of the family. If not, there’s always a greeting or a helping hand just around the corner.

Ireland’s Higher Education Institutions are absolutely committed to ensuring that visiting students settle into their new environment and have all the information needed for an enjoyable stay. All our higher education institutions have a designated staff member to whom international students can turn for any assistance.

Simply put, we’re a friendly, welcoming bunch of people, and that’s why international students get so much out of the Irish experience.

English Speaking Country

While Ireland has its own language and distinct cultural identity, English is the universal spoken language and is one of the reasons why so many multinational businesses locate their European base here.

It also makes Ireland a great choice for international students. English is now the global language of business. According to a recent article in the Harvard Business Review more and more multinational companies, including Airbus, Daimler-Chrysler, Fast Retailing, Nokia, Renault, Samsung, SAP, Technicolor and Microsoft in Beijing, are establishing English as their common corporate language to facilitate communication across geographically diverse locations and business functions.

What’s more, it’s the language of choice in the technology world. An estimated 565 million people use English on the internet.

In total, Harvard Business Review estimates that there are close to 385 million native English speakers in countries like the UK, US and Australia; about a billion fluent speakers in formerly colonised nations such as India and Nigeria, and millions of people around the world who’ve studied English as a second language. In fact, English is spoken at a useful level by some 1.75 billion people worldwide.

Dublin is a UNESCO City of Literature, our writers have had a ground-breaking impact on English literature, we have enriched the language with thousands of Irish-derived words and phrases and, for a small country, our authors have amassed a huge haul of literary awards.

Long Tradition in Education Excellence

Ireland’s longstanding reputation for high-quality education is built on a solid foundation of commitment to excellence. Today we have one of the best education systems in the world and an internationally renowned reputation for academic quality.

34 higher education institutions in Ireland offer an extensive range of over 5000 programmes leading to internationally recognised, quality assured qualifications. International students can choose to meet their educational needs in highly respected business schools, centres of scientific and technology excellence as well as renowned language, humanities and arts faculties.

Everywhere you go in Ireland, you will find a genuine and deep-seated love of learning!

Key Highlights:

ü  Ireland ranked Top 10 in the world in the following areas; such as

1.       Global Scientific Ranking

2.       Global innovation index

3.       Animal and Dairy

4.       Immunology

5.       Nanotechnology

6.       Material Sciences

7.       Agricultural Sciences

8.       Chemistry

9.       Basic Medical Research

10.   Computer science

11.   2,359 international academic collaboration in 63 countries.

12.  All of Ireland’s University is ranked in the top 5% globally

13.  Irish qualifications are quality assured by the Irish state agency and quality of Ireland

14.  Higher education system s in top 20 worldwide

15.  At 65% Ireland has one of the highest educational participation rates in the world

16.  The Irish government investment in knowledge and higher education increased by an average annual rate of 10% in the past decade compared with EU and OECD average rates of 3%

17.  Hundreds of scholarships awarded annually

Innovative and Creative Culture

Did you know? That Irish are part of the that changed the way we see the world

That Irish people were behind all these life-changing inventions? Like;

1. Irish man Robert William Boyle is known as the father of chemistry,
2. Francis Rynd invented the hypodermic syringe
3. Charles Parsons developed the world’s first steam turbine
4.   Ernest Walton, working with John Cockcroft, became the first person to artificially split the atom innovation
5.   The submarine by John Philip Holland in 1881 from County Clare, the 1^st person to successfully lunch a submarine and commissioned by US navy in 1900
6.   Colour photography by John Joly in 1884 from County Offaly, found a successful way of producing colour from a single plate.
7.  The modern tractor by Henry Ferguson the” MAD MECHANIC” in 1926 as the same basic design for modern tractor from county Down loony also invented his own motorcycle, race car and plane and in 1909 he was the first Irishman to fly. Originally a bicycle repairman he even built himself the first ever four-wheeled Formula-One car.
8. The guided missile by Louis Brennan From Castlebar, County Mayo. This stealth torpedo was used as a coastal defensive mechanism. Brennan is also credited with inventing the first helicopter. However, his prototype crashed and burnt in 1925.
9.  The nickel-zinc battery by an Irish Chemist, Dr James J. Drumm (1897–1974) and installed in four two-car railway sets, between 1932 and 1948, for use on the Dublin-Bray railway line. Today it is used to power cell phones.
10.  The portable defibrillator
11.  The Gregg system of shorthand speed writing
12.   The modern stethoscope
13.   Rubber shoe soles
14.   Soda water
15.   A treatment for leprosy by Vincent Barry an accidental and miraculous discovery that cured 15million people with a compound called B663.
16.   The aircraft ejector seat by Sir James Martin in 1945 from County Down and tested by Bernard Lynch
17.   Chocolate milk!

  Trans-Atlantic calls and the Kelvin Scale by Lord Kelvin Thomson in 1865 from County Kerry, he established the Atlantic Telegraph by laying cable from Newfoundland to County Kerry and in the measurement of temperature and thermodynamics

  And many more

We’re an ingenious lot who punch well above our weight internationally when it comes to creativity in art, literature and music and ingenuity in science and technology.

Business

the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon was one of the fathers of modern economics and monetary theory;

Fyffes, with its ‘blue label’ banana, created the first and oldest fruit brand in the world

 Irish-founded Ryanair, Europe’s largest low-cost airline, brought the concepts of no-frills flights to Europe.

Music

song-writing and dance is in our blood. Irish music has influenced the country, bluegrass, folk, jazz and rock music in North America, Europe, Australia and beyond; Riverdance has given birth to a renaissance in Irish dance throughout the world, and Ireland has won the Eurovision Song Contest more times than any other any other country!

Irish writers

Irish man Samuel Beckett and James Joyce have had a revolutionary impact on English literature, influencing writers and artists in countries and cultures across the world.

Irish man Philip Treacy – milliner to the rich, beautiful and famous – is one of the top hat makers in the world, having lifted hat design to an haute couture art form.

Technology

Technology Achievements are just too numerous to mention…

1.  Technology from Kerry-based Altobridge enabled AeroMobile to make history when they launched the world’s first commercial in-flight mobile communications service.
2. The Irish company Daon supplies biometric software to governments around the world, allowing them to establish and confirm the unique identity of billions of people for border control and social security.
3. Technology from the Dublin company Havok allows some the world’s best-known developers to reach new standards of realism and interactivity in games from Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony…You get the picture!

Extensive Choice of Courses

Ireland’s higher education institutions have over 5,000 courses on offer across the spectrum of medicine, science, technology, engineering, business, law, languages, literature, history, philosophy, psychology, sociology and other humanities as well as the creative, visual and performing arts.

Degrees are available at ordinary and honours bachelors, masters and doctorate levels.