Mr. Paddy Howard:

To be clear about the provenance of this particular indicator, it grows out of the kind of legacy position that there is only statutory provision. SFI has a role in respect of STEM and those indicators were created in respect of that. Where a statutory goal was set, obviously, it was something that needed to be reported on. We have kept that for now as it gives a certain kind of historical perspective and all of that kind of good stuff. To be very clear, when we have a new agency with a new remit that puts all disciplines on a statutory footing, we will absolutely need to look at those indicators again.

There would be material published by the Higher Education Authority on PhD graduates in general and one will find there the annual figure for what the talent pool is, which is approximately 1,500 per year, with 60% of them typically in STEM and 40% in arts, humanities and social sciences, AHSS. We will consider how best to reflect that when we are considering the performance metrics that we need in that new world with a new agency.