Dr. Ken Whelan:

I want to pick up on a point Dr. Berrow made on the paradigm and the model we use for research. We really have to think laterally. Through the Atlantic Salmon Trust we set up another group, the Missing Salmon Alliance, to fundraise privately for the big issues that are facing salmon. We are funding the likely suspects framework through which we are trying to identify exactly what is happening and what we can do to try to mitigate it.

I very much agree with what Professor Franki said earlier. There is a lot of money but at present what we are doing is following the old method of approaching the research. The answer to the question as to whether we need more Newports is that we do. We have a huge opportunity here. We have two opportunities. We have a national need, as we have been outlining, and we also have an international opportunity. We are sitting on the edge of climate change. Climate change is happening in the ocean off the west coast. We are sitting on the very edge of this change. We really have a fantastic opportunity to roll out research and development so we can support it. Certainly in the context of marine renewables, there are all sorts of models, as Dr. Berrow mentioned earlier, that we can follow in terms of integrating the finance available through venture capital and new businesses with our research needs, and make absolutely certain that the biodiversity component is at its core, which, in the past, may not have been the case.

A few years ago, I was privileged to be part of a Government review looking at the whole question of aquaculture licensing, which has been very difficult down the years. Dr. Berrow mentioned the question of foreshore licences and how slow it is to issue them. I am really fearful that we are beginning to repeat the errors we made in the past in the development of other marine industries. We really need to be fleet of foot and look at these things laterally, and be highly creative in terms of looking at the opportunities and going for them with a modest amount of State investment but an awful lot of intellectual investment.