Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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19. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills her views that it is good policy to ask research students from the humanities to compete on an equal footing with those from economics and the sciences for funding, in particular the stress on transferable skills as a prerequisite for funding and the detrimental effects it is having on the humanities as a research area here; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [37945/14]

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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Competitive research funding available from my Department is managed by the Irish Research Council. The Council has a broad remit to support and enhance human capital development, in particular at postgraduate and early stage postdoctoral levels. Its remit covers the full range of disciplines spanning the humanities, social sciences, business, law, sciences, engineering and technology.

The Council's main postgraduate and postdoctoral schemes categorise applications from a) humanities and social sciences, and b) engineering and technology separately, and each applicant only competes with applications from a similar cohort of student. Awards are made in each category on the basis of excellence following assessment by expert independent panels, whose membership is primarily international.