Dr. Brian Lee:

I would like to reiterate what most of the other people have said. Professor O'Shea brought up two points I would like to refer to. One is the need for a standardised set of qualifications. Some years ago, when we were setting up our cyberprogramme, we did a canvass of industry to get a list of job descriptions. Depending on which company we talked to, we found something like 40 job descriptions, most of which seemed to be covering the same things, or certainly there was lots of overlap between them. Thus, there is a need for a standardised approach across the setting of the research qualifications and looking at the content and looking at the whole area around the skills and educational side.

The second point to reiterate is the need not just for more collaboration, but also for something that has been identified by at least three of the witnesses; namely, a unified, co-ordinated centre. Professor O'Shea focused on SFI whereas one of the other speakers was addressing the need for a cybersecurity campus. I do not know which model is best or if both are different sides of the same coin, but there is definitely a need for co-ordination to harmonise all the contributions. Those two points seemed to be particularly pertinent. All the others were good as well, of course. Mr. Umit Uygur's point about the need for the involvement of SMEs and taking things down to a national level is well made.