Dr. Lisa Keating:

Regarding the board, it is key that there is diverse membership and that the members come from different backgrounds. That means across the disciplines so they have that understanding and also, as I mentioned, with regard to the end users because different people will want to use the knowledge that is created for different purposes. We really need to look at the make-up of the board. The SFI and IRC boards are quite different at the moment. Coming up with the ideal solution is key. I will not suggest specifically what should be done there but in the Norwegian system, while there is a department of education and research, the funding agency - the Research Council of Norway - works with 15 government departments so they all put money into that. It therefore does all it can for everyone it can. That is an interesting system. It is not necessarily where we are going here but we might have something along those lines.

The Deputy asked about the ambiguity. There were some restrictions with regard to the SFI legislation. SFI has done amazing work in bringing Ireland forward in terms of research and innovation, as has the Irish Research Council. However, the legislation was somewhat restrictive. My understanding is that this is an opportunity to open that all up. Of course we want research to help the economy and help with enterprise but we must also look at the grand challenges of health, housing, digitalisation and all those areas. If the definitions are ambiguous, they can be interpreted differently as the agency is operationalised. I am not supposing that would happen but we need that clarity. We need to be clear that it is across all disciplines, that it is fundamentally about curiosity-driven research as well as the priority areas we might need. It is very difficult to do that. Countries often prioritise but they do not prioritise to such an extent that other areas are left wanting. That is what we have had in the past. We saw in the time of Covid that we really needed those experts who had gone for many years without funding. It is a question of how we do that.