Professor Stephen Roper:

We are grateful for the invitation to address the committee. I am professor of enterprise in Warwick Business School and I am joined by my colleague, Ms Jane Bourke from University College Cork. Today we are representing the Enterprise Research Centre, ERC, which is a UK Government and UK social science funded research centre. We conduct primary research to address knowledge gaps in the UK which underpin enterprise policy and also knowledge curation - making knowledge available to policymakers more effectively in the UK.

I will leave it at that as I have to run for a plane but Ms Bourke will provide some information to the committee.