Dr. Paul Conway:

There are two key points to the question the Senator posed on linkages with other institutions and agencies. The centre that will open in UCC, the United Nations environmental programme, GEM Centre, will be focused on water. When the centre opens next year, we will be making links with the variety of colleagues in other universities in Ireland who work in that area, particularly those in Trinity College, but Irish Aid also funded a project called Water for Life through the programme for strategic co-operation which was led by Dundalk Institute of Technology. When developments take place, we will engage in horizon scanning in terms of the expertise available within the Irish system.

To give another example of linkages, colleagues in the law department in UCC have been leading the way in developing child-friendly health care policies. They built links recently with the World Health Organization and there will be a centre hosted in UCC linked with the World Health Organization in promoting child-friendly health care policies, nationally and internationally. We are very much engaged in horizon scanning and watching for potential linkages, locally, nationally and internationally.