Quote from http://nanotechireland.com:
The support is critical for academics who wish to spin out technologies from laboratories but lack expertise in business areas. Enterprise Ireland can provide funding, but equally important can provide advice and contacts to the venture capital community through their Irish based staff or their network of overseas offices. In addition, Enterprise Ireland provides grant supports to third level institutions to undertake basic research and applied, or near market research independently or in partnership with an established business.

Ireland has an active nanotechnology sector, according to Dr. Robert Flood, Senior Development Advisor at Enterprise Ireland. Dr. Flood said that the government has funnelled money into basic research through Science Foundation Ireland. The two main themes, he said, are information and communications technologies and biotechnology. He believes that nanotechnology is well suited to Ireland's research infrastructure. "It's an enabling technology that will actually straddle practically every single technological area," he said. "An application developed in a chemistry lab can equally find its way into a computer or into a novel drug delivery system".