Professor Helen Kelly-Holmes:

I just want to come in again on the collaboration side. Where programmes are interdisciplinary, sometimes there may need to be a condition put in about AHSS leadership, as with the collaborative alliances for societal challenges, COALESCE, programme the Irish Research Council, IRC, has, for instance. I agree that we work really well in an interdisciplinary sense. However, in the interdisciplinary sense where it is STEM and AHSS, the leadership generally comes from the STEM side. That possibly needs a little bit of redress. That would be a slight concern.

The IRC has built-in mechanisms to ensure this happens through, for instance, a number of programmes. That would be an area we would like to see.