9 JUNE 2004

PROFESSOR ANDY HAINES, PROFESSOR IAN MAUDLIN AND MR NICK WINTERTON

  Q500 Chairman: All the research councils interact through the RCUK now. Yes, is what you are saying. What do you think, Nick Winterton? Will you go back and tell your Chief Executive that this is floating in the wind?

  Mr Winterton: I will certainly go back and say it is floating in the wind. We use the same bodies to advise on UK investment and on investment overseas because essentially there is a huge amount of overlap in many areas that are relevant to both, and therefore there would be a question of whether you were duplicating structures or whether you would be sharing structures because we would use, for example, our Infections and Immunity Board to judge applications whether they are relevant to disease, that is predominantly in the developing world, or not.

  Q501 Chairman: That happens anyway.

  Mr Winterton: Yes, making best use of your scientific advice.

  Chairman: On that very positive note where we are all trying to improve things, I would like to say thank you very much indeed for coming along and helping us out. You will see the report some time after we get back from Malawi.