Ireland’s innovation story is usually told through its multinational tenants and its research centres. But a less visible model — pairing big corporates with ambitious small firms, and backing both with a national skills strategy — is quietly reshaping how Irish businesses actually innovate. Its architecture is deliberate, and it’s expanding fast.

A New Three-Year Strategy for Enterprise Capability

In 2026, Skillnet Ireland launched Empowering Enterprise 2026–2028: A Strategy for Next Generation Capability, a roadmap built around a clear target — equipping 100,000 businesses and 400,000 workers with the skills to compete as AI, digital transformation, and sustainability reshape entire industries. Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science James Lawless described the strategy as strengthening Skillnet Ireland’s enterprise-led model, specifically citing digitalisation, artificial intelligence, and green technologies as the areas of emerging business need it’s designed to meet.

The strategy is being driven at leadership level by Ken Finnegan, Skillnet Ireland’s Chief Strategy Officer, who leads the organisation’s skills investment and partner strategy, working directly with the European Commission, higher education institutions, government departments, and both international and indigenous companies across Ireland’s major business sectors. His focus is enhancing the competitiveness of Irish enterprise by equipping businesses with the skills needed for the future world of work — and increasingly, that work is being delivered through structures designed to make innovation itself a repeatable, scalable process rather than a one-off grant or training course.

The Marketplace Model: Pairing Corporates With SMEs

The clearest expression of that approach is Skillnet Innovation Exchange, described as Ireland’s marketplace for innovation. The mechanism is straightforward but effective: a large corporate partner posts a genuine innovation challenge — a digital transformation problem, a sustainability gap, an operational need — and selected Irish SMEs are invited to submit solutions. A shortlist pitches on a demo day, the corporate partner selects a preferred solution, and if trials succeed, a commercial contract follows.

Since launching in February 2022, the model has delivered results that go well beyond training statistics. An independent impact assessment by KHSK Economic Consultants, presented at The Innovation Summit in Galway, found the initiative had facilitated more than €5 million in SME deal flow and delivered 6,000 training days through a nationwide network of regional innovation hubs. More than 600 participants and 2,100 scaling solution providers and corporates have engaged with the programme to date, working with major Irish and multinational names including Ryanair, Glanbia, and InterSport Elverys.

The model, Finnegan has said, is helping to strengthen Ireland’s competitiveness by bridging the gap between enterprise and innovation — enabling larger corporates to address digital and sustainability challenges while creating tangible growth opportunities for smaller Irish firms.

Expanding Into the Regions

That expansion has continued into the summer of 2026. Skillnet Innovation Exchange has just extended into Gaeltacht areas through a new partnership with Údarás na Gaeltachta, giving businesses in regional and Irish-speaking areas access to the same corporate-SME innovation model already running through hubs including Platform 94 in Galway, Republic of Work in Cork, The Ludgate Hub in Skibbereen, The Mill in Drogheda, the RDI Hub in Kerry, and GreenTech HQ in Enniscorthy.

It’s a natural extension of the strategy driving the programme nationally — embedding enterprise-led innovation regionally rather than concentrating it in Dublin, and giving solution providers outside the capital direct access to larger corporations and new growth opportunities.

Widening the Remit: Climate as the Next Frontier

The same leadership has also been pushing Skillnet’s enterprise-skills model into newer territory. In June 2026, marking its fifth anniversary, Skillnet Climate Ready Academy launched a new Climate Risk & Resilience Programme, designed to help Irish businesses assess and respond to climate-related risks affecting their operations, supply chains, and long-term competitiveness. Since its establishment, the Academy has trained 2,000 businesses and more than 5,500 employees, who have collectively committed to almost 6,000 concrete sustainability actions within their organisations.

It’s a clear signal that the same enterprise-led, skills-first model behind Innovation Exchange is now being deliberately extended into Ireland’s climate transition — treating adaptation as a business competitiveness issue rather than a compliance one.

The Bottom Line

Ireland’s enterprise innovation story is often told through FDI wins and research centre breakthroughs, but a quieter, more structural model — pairing corporates directly with SMEs, then backing the whole system with a national skills strategy — is proving just as consequential, and is scaling deliberately across regions, sectors, and now climate resilience. With a new three-year national strategy, an Innovation Exchange model now reaching Gaeltacht businesses, and a climate skills programme expanding its own remit, the enterprise-led approach championed at Skillnet Ireland’s strategic level looks set to be one of the more durable engines of Irish business competitiveness through 2028.