Gerry's distinguished career in R&D and Innovation is vast. He has served as; College Principal for Engineering & Architecture at UCD, founder of the "Advanced Manufacturing Research Science Group" (AMS) in 1993, Division Lead in Corporate R&D in Daimler Benz AG in Germany, Expert on the Irish Revenue Panel for R&D Tax Credits, Board member of the Research Technology Innovation (RTI) Board of Enterprise Ireland, High-Level Commission Member for the Excellence University Strategy Germany (allocation of €4.5bn funding), IDA 2017-2022 Strategic Plan Team Member, Irish representative on the European Research Advisory Board (EURAB), Advisor to the President of IT Sligo, Advisor to the President of DCU, Founding Fellow and Past President of the Irish Academy of Engineering,  Fellow and Past President of the International Academy for Production Engineering (CIRP), and Senior Advisor and Advisor to the President of Fraunhofer-Gesellsehaft in Germany.

Gerry has been internationally recognised for his efforts. He holds an honorary doctorate in recognition of his outstanding international contribution as an innovator in engineering from the Technological University, Dublin. He was awarded the Golden Ring of the German Society of Engineering (VDI) in recognition of his outstanding insights into the fundamentals of material removal mechanisms and surface engineering in subtractive advanced manufacturing processes. Professor Byrne is a Honorary Professor at Tianjin University, China where he contributes to their advanced manufacturing research programme. He is also the recipient of the prestigious Taylor Research Medal of the Society of  Manufacturing Engineers, USA in recognition of his outstanding research contributions to Manufacturing Systems Development. In 2017, Professor Byrne was awarded the Fraunhofer Taler Medal by the President of Fraunhofer for his outstanding international contribution to applied (higher TRL level) R&D and Innovation.

Throughout his career, Gerry observed that the field of Industrial R&D and Innovation Management was at an early, stage and that in stark contrast to the other areas of any company where operational excellence is well established, research, development and innovation work is not characterised by clear and measurable business processes.

He founded GB Innovation in 2014 to address the challenges observed and to assist companies drive the field of Industrial R&D Management to a higher level of maturity. Initially working in an R&D consulting capacity, Gerry pitched the idea for his business to his son David Byrne, and his hypotheses regarding  R&D Management to his daughter Fiona Sammler (Professor of Manufacturing and Technical Fundamentals and University of Applied Sciences Berlin) and from there GB Innovation was born.

The effective management of industrial research, development and innovation (RD&I) is a challenge for SMEs, Large Companies, MNCs and their top-management teams. This work is by its nature random, uncertain, creative, complex, and the associated business processes are most often bespoke. The majority of companies globally have an unstructured RD&I environment, lacking a roadmap to business excellence. Without a clear R&D or Technological roadmap, companies face frequent challenges such as;

• Deciding on which R&D projects to progress
• Inefficient and non-robust R&D Tax Incentive claims and/or other government funding claims
• Inadequate knowledge transfer & IP management
• Distinguishing R&D from other business processes (New product Development, Design, Engineering)
• Establishing RD&I processes and metrics
• R&D project execution and failure management

In summary, for companies across the globe, R&D and Innovation is difficult to measure and manage. Through GB Innovation's large network globally, it is clear that there are no other end-to-end supporting mechanisms, services or software tools available to systematically measure, improve and manage the performance of R&D and Innovation activities within companies.

As a small team, GB Innovation developed an ambitious commercial and technical roadmap to address its mission statement: to professionalise the undertaking and management of RD&I in enterprises/organisations through the deployment of a structured, systematic software toolkit.

Through intensive work strengthening the R&D and Innovation capability of over 50 companies in Ireland, and strong global network, GB Innovation developed a scalable methodology to drive forward the field of R&D and Management: the ReaDI-Watch© Platform and Research Readiness Level© Index.