Mr. Paul Lynam:

I thanks Senator Byrne. As the committee will know, our long-standing request is that a UK-Ireland bilateral research fund be established. This would be a fund where the UK and Irish Governments would commit, proportionately, resources to research collaboration across these islands. Within that, we would see numerous different measures. The Senator will be aware of the North-South research centre agenda and the idea of creating a North-South hub but we are thinking also in terms of supporting early career researchers, mobility grants, which are important, and placement programmes between the various different jurisdictions. We have seen, with some success the joint professorships that were put in place, and we think they could be expanded further. We saw the successful Science Foundation Ireland, SFI, and Oxford one, between UCC and Oxford. There is progress to be made on various different fronts there.

What we have found is a greater interest, as a result of Brexit, in collaboration from UK universities, research bodies and institutes with their Irish counterparts. The Royal Society of Edinburgh, RSE, and the Royal Irish Academy, RIA, have developed a grant support programme. There is huge progress potential in this area. This is one of those areas when one thinks of UK-Irish relations more generally where we can be working on the same page, addressing the same agenda.

Broken down further, the devolved administrations in the North, Scotland and Wales are keen to do more research collaboration with Ireland. These are countries with similar research and higher education ecosystems to Ireland. They face a disproportionately higher challenge, as a result of Brexit. We have previously brought together all the vice presidents for research from Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Northern Ireland. They are keen to do much more work in this area. It is identified in both the Scottish-Irish and Wales-Ireland bilateral deals as an area that can be developed further. The honest reality is that it comes down to euros and cents. We will need more for these specific projects. Obviously, we are feeding into Horizon Europe and Ireland is now getting more money back out of that programme. Additional programmes, built on what we have seen in terms of the SFI-America fund, could be put in place as an example of the structure between Ireland and the UK.

This an area that is primed for great potential, but we would have to put some resources into it. It would be great if this committee recommended that area as one where if we put the money in, we will get more back and it will increase our collaborative agenda with the United Kingdom. Again, it would be good for UK-Irish relations, working on the same agenda.