Professor Mark Ferguson:

I will address the question on the institutes of technology first. Excellence in Ireland is distributed. If one looks at the main areas of science, nanotechnology, food science and agriculture, one will find excellent people in all of the Irish institutions, both the universities and the institutes of technology. They may not all be distributed equally but one will find excellent people across the educational institutions. Science Foundation Ireland, SFI, research centres mandate that all of the excellent people, no matter where they are located, be it Trinity College, UCD, UCC, the institutes of technology in Tralee, Mayo or wherever, must collaborate with one other and with industry. It is absolutely true that the institutes of technology can participate in all of those programmes but they do not participate to the same degree as the universities. That is partly because they have a stronger teaching mission but that said, they do participate. We are seeing institutes of technology working with the SFI research centres, with really excellent researchers working at those institutes. That provides an opportunity because the SFI research centres are well funded in terms of infrastructure and that has to be shared across the institutions. It would be nonsense to replicate all of the infrastructure in every university and every institute of technology; we need to have some sharing. We are very positive about having all of the excellent people, no matter where they are located, collaborating within the SFI research centres. It is absolutely true that there are fewer people from the institutes of technology than the universities but it is equally true that in the last four research centres that we announced two weeks ago, two of which are in manufacturing, there are very significant contributions from institutes of technology. It is also noteworthy that for the first time we have had an application for an SFI research professorship, one of the star researchers, from an institute of technology. I see that as progress and something good. We are open and do not mind where the excellence is based. However, we do want a coherent structure in which that can be put forward.

In terms of the Brexit negotiations and the UK going it alone, let me be very clear - the British are going it alone at the moment and people are planning on that basis. The UK has activated the scientific Commonwealth. I worked in the UK for many years and there was never any discussion about the Commonwealth in science but that has now been activated. The second Commonwealth science symposium has taken place and there are also very significant bilateral discussions going on with the United States, Australia, China, Japan and so on but they are also going on with Ireland. Our strategy there is to strengthen all of our bilateral relations so we now jointly fund with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the Wellcome Trust and the Royal Society and all of those will endure, no matter what kind of Brexit transpires. Brexit is irrelevant to those relationships. We need those bilateral relationships but what is different now is that we have to provide the funding. What is different about those relationships is that under a European programme, the European Union provides the funding for the various projects but under these bilateral programmes, the UK Government will fund the piece in the UK and we will fund the piece in Ireland. To that end, the UK Government has put in £2 billion more into scientific research post Brexit but we have put in nothing, so there is the problem. The problem is not with the relationships, which are there and which will endure. The problem is we are going to have to pay for the Irish piece of the bilateral collaborations and the UK will pay for the British piece. The UK is signalling this clearly and is putting extra money into the budget for these bilateral and multilateral collaborations and we need to be able to play in those games. There are very good researchers in the UK and we want to collaborate with them. We also want the Irish institutions to collaborate with them.

The North-South piece is really interesting and really important. We had a joint funding scheme, North and South, between Science Foundation Ireland and the devolved Administration in Northern Ireland. Bluntly, we ran the scheme, the Administration funded the piece in Northern Ireland and we funded the piece in the South. As there is no longer a devolved Administration, that scheme does not operate but hopefully it will be resurrected when there is a new Administration in place or resurrected by Westminster. I am discussing that actively because we need to promote those North-South collaborations. Members must be very clear, however, that in all of these things I have talked about, the bill lands with us and where the likely limitation will be is in our budget, to be blunt. Science Foundation Ireland does not have a sufficient budget to fund all of the excellent and impactful projects that come its way, including those with very significant industrial collaboration.

That is likely to be enhanced post Brexit if the UK is not part of the EU programmes. That is because we will have all of these bilateral programmes but the bit in Ireland will have to be funded by us, not the EU. The bit in the UK will have to be funded by the UK and it has stepped up to the plate. Mrs. May has released £2 billion more for research and innovation in the UK since Brexit was announced.