Professor Daniel Carey:

I would like to see Ireland being a destination of choice, as I mentioned earlier. That requires new programmes and an uplift in funding. I want to see robust disciplines that are secure and involved in collaboration. I want to see greater impact and investment, and more secure research careers. Those are themes that have come up at this meeting.

To return to some of the points I made earlier, I want to see a commitment to basic and fundamental research. There is an important role for Government here because it can take risks. It can look at the blue skies and ask where we want to go with this. We cannot expect industry and enterprise to do that on all occasions, for understandable reasons.

In respect of the board, competencies are key, to put it simply. We would like to see those elaborated and to see all areas of active research represented.

I earlier made a point about arts, humanities and social sciences, AHSS. There has been a lot of social and demographic change in Ireland. We need to understand and interpret, and engage with, these phenomena. If we look back over a short period, we see the introduction of marriage equality, the repeal of the eighth amendment, migration and disinformation. Those are all key social issues and we must have a well-equipped body of expertise and research in the country to engage with the questions that arise. The Covid-19 pandemic amply demonstrated that point.

To come back to the question about missions, we should also see AHSS-led missions. We should be open to these possibilities and see where the intellectual imagination lies.