TWICE THE SIZE - DIT Update - Dublin Institute of Technology

5. As a direct corollary, creativity and innovation are imperatives towards maintaining
competitiveness, so that experimentation, research and development in radical, and
increasingly multi-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary, directions is the only way
forward.
6. Five factors arguably will combine to promote widespread economic dynamism and
growth: political pressure for higher living standards; improved macroeconomic
policy management; rising international trade and investment spurring world GDP;
even greater diffusion of information technology; and increasingly dynamic private
sectors, accompanied by further deregulation and privatisation.
7. The growth of large emerging markets, such as Brazil, Russia, India and China will
exercise a growing influence on the global economic and political stage over years
to come.
8. A maturing knowledge economy will require an enhanced and extended educational
infrastructure addressing such pressing issues as the nature of childhood, extended
adolescence, personal and social foundations, inequality and exclusion, changing
family and community life, and life-long learning.
9. There will be a movement towards the adoption of cooperative strategies on the
part of business, whereby the traditional business model organised around
competition will be complemented by other models based more on collaboration,
open source access and new forms of human and machine interactions and
relationships concerned with managing complex business dilemmas.
10. The democratisation of finance will continue leading to even greater investment
opportunities, and the free flow of money could herald significant change to come
as it impacts on currencies, on inflation and deflation rates, and on long-term
savings and pension schemes.
Prospects for Ireland
The dominant theme that emerges from this and other studies in exploring the economic
prospects for Ireland going forward is the importance of competition in boosting future
productivity. As a small, open, trade-dependent economy the country has experienced a
veritable transformation from its traditional agricultural base to one founded increasingly on
high-technology and an internationally traded services sector. This has been accompanied by
unprecedented economic growth, low unemployment and a healthy set of public finances. Over
recent years, however costs have risen, skills are less plentiful and the global market for mobile
direct investment has become much more competitive. Ireland undoubtedly has achieved
sharply higher living standards, but to retain and enhance them the economy faces a number of
challenges. Some twenty of the most significant economic issues and trends identified for
Ireland are listed below.
1. Competitiveness is clearly the key. Competition stimulates innovation as firms
invest in the development of new products or production methods. It encourages
efficiency improvements as firms strive to reduce costs to compete for customers.
And it promotes the diffusion of technology as firms seek to improve productivity by
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