Rose Conway-Walsh Questions Ireland Unit on All-Island Research Infrastructure

I welcome this opportunity here today to have the update on the Ireland unit. Just a couple of things, I suppose. First, when you referenced a civic forum and civil engagement, other than the ongoing dialogue, what has been progressed in this area and what structures would make up the agenda of engagement in the future? I very much welcome the fact that you're looking at opening up because I think this committee is very, very important in taking part in these discussions and I think it's important and I don't know if there would be any impediment to us being, I know I tried to access one of them and it was extremely difficult, so that we're not all reinventing the wheel in there. We're really adding to each other's work where we have key interests and members on this committee, you know, such as I would obviously have in the future of the education on the island and pieces of work that we're doing there. Specifically, I want to ask you, Angela, last week we had the All-Island Cancer Research Institute in before the committee and I know they're making a submission to the North-South Research Programme. Now, their mission is to establish a fully integrated approach to cancer research and their aim now is to establish a virtual institute focusing on bringing together cancer researchers across the island. And it's been said to me and we talked about it the last day that it's best for government to fund the hard things to fund and the researchers will do the rest. This often refers to the research infrastructure and the architecture that's needed to share all this information so that we really get the value out of research that we need so that we're not using paper exercises and all that. So in terms of providing the research infrastructure, has any consideration been given by your unit to the role that you can play in helping to bring about this infrastructure, both in terms of the data and in terms of the other things that will be needed for the research to have an all-island collaborative approach to it? So maybe I'll leave it at that just to allow you to be able to answer those two. I have several other questions, but I'm sure my colleagues will. Okay, so we call in. Sorry, excuse me. Would you mind if I got an answer to them in the five minutes and then we move on to our next speaker? Well, I'm happy to do whatever you want. What I want to make sure is that you get your time, but we don't exceed it because I know people are under pressure. So whatever way, like if you want the answers, that's fine. There's 12 minutes left. That's okay, but then we stop at 10 to go on to our next speaker. Oh, we'll stop when we stop. We don't want to stop a speaker in a minute of speech. Go ahead. Well, I'm sorry. Okay, I'm not quite sure how quickly I need to answer this now. So, look, I mean, just on the shared island dialogue, so it's been an ongoing series. I mean, it's not a one-off, so we've had an ongoing series of seven dialogues. Each one is extremely carefully prepared in terms of making sure we have good themes and, you know, substantive themes that are relevant, interesting panels, and then that the participation is diverse. So they're sort of the three. And then that we look also at the outcomes. So I think as we look to the next phase of the dialogues, what we are planning is we will prepare and produce a report on this first year of dialogues and then draw out of that some, you know, some recommendations and some proposals for the next phase forward. So it's an ongoing, dynamic and very substantive program of work. And as regards your point about accessing, again, I think as we move into, particularly as we move into the in-person phase, which, you know, obviously depending on COVID restrictions, we would see, you know, that at that point in particular, the political involvement would become, you know, that would be a much easier dynamic when we're all in a room together. It's not at all that the Good Friday Agreement Committee or any of you are being excluded. It's that we have different avenues at the moment for conversation with different people. But we ourselves, just as you have said, and the chair has said, see the need for bringing those different strands closer together. So I'm happy to continue that discussion. On the research, I mean, so basically, it's, you know, I'm familiar with the all-island cancer research proposal. And it was indeed a number of proposals like that that were out there that really made us think about creating the North-South Research Programme to create an actual strategic context for all of this. And also to make sure that, you know, we were not just addressing one or two particular proposals, but that we were also driving further collaboration. I'd have to come back to you on the technicalities of what you mean by research infrastructure. But what I would say is the research programme, I mean, my assumption is some of that will be built into the proposals because there are three levels of funding under the research programme. You have individual researcher to researcher collaboration, then you have, I suppose, sort of sectoral collaboration between different, you know, hubs, maybe in particular areas, and then you have full institutional collaboration. So I think that, you know, within that, I would have, I mean, you know, the programme is being run by the HEA, but we can come back to you on the research infrastructure. You know, I think that's already encompassed. Okay. Thank you. We'll have further discussion. Okay. So...