Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I will be brief. I can send the Senator more details. The PhD student review is a big part of getting that piece right. It is a question of how we treat PhD students, how we attract people to the country and how we retain people. It is an issue about their well-being and welfare and about national competitiveness. I think the Senator and I agree on that. He has raised this issue of PhD students quite a lot with me. This short, sharp review has broad terms of reference but is focused at the same time. It involves external people. It will report back early in 2023 and will give us a roadmap to get to a much better place.

We will bring forward legislation in 2023 around what the structures will look like. As the Senator implied, it is not about getting bogged down in structures - as the title suggests, it is about the impact that those structures will make. We must be clear that it is about supporting all forms of research, and not just enterprise-related research. That is something I think the Senator and I share a view on. I am happy to update the committee on where we are at in the implementation of the strategy. A number of new groups have started meeting. We are working closely with the vice-presidents of research across the universities. It is a strategy that has been pretty well received by the sector, probably because it has been co-designed by it and the experts. I am happy to send the Chair a detailed note on the implementation of Impact 2030.