Bethan has outlined earlier on in this session the fact that institutions are currently running deficit budgets in order not to lose the infrastructure on the assumption that the Diamond money will come in. If anything were to cause significant perturbation, either to the timeline of that or to it coming in at all, then there would be much more of what Medwin Hughes calls 'houskeeping' that would be required, and that would be significant. So, at the moment—I don't like the expression 'valley of death', but there is a valley to cross, and I think the sector is reasonably confident about how wide and how deep that valley is. There's a demographic valley as well. So, there are several valleys that they're crossing—the metaphor fails, doesn't it, really, but I think you get the drift? So, there are a number of challenges and they can see their way out of some of those challenges, but if any one of these starts to get significantly disrupted, then that would be a real issue for them.
Okay. Could I go on to ask about other barriers to Welsh universities gaining more funding from UK research councils? What would you say those barriers are?
Well, I think there are a couple of things, really, to say. The first one—and we'll sound like a stuck record if we're not careful—is that there's an issue about investment and the Reid report makes this very clear. So, he has reaffirmed research that had been done previously that identifies that, actually, the quality of the research base in Welsh universities and the productivity of that Welsh research base are both good, there's just not enough of them, and that, in the end, is a product of investment decisions. They have particularly looked at the deficit in science, technology, engineering and mathematics areas, and I always say that research is not just STEM. I mean, STEM is important, and I'm not denying the deficit in that area, but we have to also remember that the research agenda for Wales is not just STEM—it's arts, humanities, it's social sciences. If you look at the impact on public policy that could come from social science research—tremendous. And we're very good at it in Wales. The Welsh impact in its research is better than anywhere else in the UK, so that's good. So, they do very well, and we just really need to invest a little bit further—so continue to do very well, but put it on a broader front. If you want to be able to play into the UK-wide research funding, then the investment has two dimensions to it. One is just having enough researchers to be able to play into those increasingly larger projects rather than small-scale projects. If you haven't got the critical mass, it's very hard to make the case that you can play. And the second thing is that UK-wide research pots nearly always fund at about 80 per cent of the total cost of the research, and the other 20 per cent is meant to be found from the core research funding for the university, and if you're in a situation where your core research funding is not competitive, then you're not going to be competitive at getting that money. So, that's, kind of, straightforward. There are other things. I think it's fair to say that the Welsh sector has not been sufficiently focused on getting in on the conversations with the research councils, making sure they're in the various committees and so on. We are intending to do a bit of work to see if we can systematise that a bit better—that engagement—because there's no doubt about it: it's not to say that this system is in any way inappropriate, but the more you're in the conversations, the more likely you are to be better placed to respond to the research challenges that come up.
Okay. One final question: in terms of the researcher collaborations and networks that exist, do you see potential difficulties after Brexit for the continuation and enhancement of those, and are there any particular lessons to learn from Sêr Cymru II?