input: Text: Gareth Rogers: Good morning, and welcome to today's meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. Unfortunately, the Chair is unable to attend today, so in accordance with Standing Order 17.22 I call for nominations for a temporary Chair for the duration of today's meeting. Julie Morgan AM: I nominate John Griffiths. Gareth Rogers: Thank you. Darren Millar AM: I'll second that nomination. Gareth Rogers: As there's only one nomination, I declare that John Griffiths has been appointed as temporary Chair. Thank you, John. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Thank you all very much, and item 1 on our agenda today is introductions, apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest. We've received apologies from Hefin David and Lynne Neagle. There are no substitutions. Are there any declarations of interest? No. We will move on then to item 2, and our inquiry into the impact of Brexit on higher and further education, and our first evidence session. I'm very pleased to welcome the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales here today, and Dr David Blaney as chief executive, and Bethan Owen, director of institutional engagement. Welcome to you both. Thanks for coming along to give evidence today. If it's okay with you, we'll move straight to questions, and Julie Morgan. Julie Morgan AM: Good morning. Bore da. I wondered if we could start off with you telling us what evidence you can see that the Brexit process has had any impact on Welsh higher education so far. Dr David Blaney: Can I preface the response by just reminding you that we are, by contract and by role, apolitical, and a lot of the judgments about the impact of Brexit essentially reflect where people sit politically in terms of whether they think it's a good thing or a bad thing? We're not going to go there, obviously, today, so we'll stick to the facts as we can see them, and hopefully we'll be able to help you, but there are areas where we are unable to help. That's part of the reason. John Griffiths AM: We certainly do not expect
  Question: What are the other barriers to Welsh universities gaining more funding from UK research councils?
  Answer:
output: The biggest is that there's an issue about investment. 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. If they want to be able to play into the UK-wide research funding, the investment has two dimensions. One is having enough researchers playing in larger projects rather than small-scale projects; and the second thing is that, compared to UK-wide research pots, Wales' core research funding is not competitive. Also,  the Welsh sector has not been sufficiently focused on getting in on the conversations with the research councils.