 Bring this out to the CG itself, which has also got views and we've got donors, how can you get is that correct? Or who are all the players? What are the other players? Oh I think there are a number of other players I mean, when we talk about what we're trying to do we're actually trying to look at influencing how livestock development occurs for the benefit of the poor. And so there's a number of other people we're trying to influence I think they're very important and setting our research agenda so that we can show that we have something relevant for them. Is there a conflict between them or do you see a clear pathway? I think there are conflicts in many things. Different people have different demands going right down to what they think researchers, for example. There are many types of different demands on us, which are not always easy to reconcile. The Science Council, for example, I have a little quote here from a group of donors that says, The Science Council priorities for the CG 2005-2015 cannot be considered a successful attempt to identify a research agenda, preventing the CG for contributing effectively to poverty reduction and sustainable development and meeting the medium term goals. How do you react to that? You presumably already reacted to that. Well, there's been a number of reactions to that. That particular comment came from some of the development donors who are a bit frustrated at the links between research and development, and the responsiveness of research to development, and in particular the responsiveness of a CG agenda to research and development. In fact, the Science Council says that the Science Council neglects the fact that the CG is supported from development co-operation funds and not from science funds. That is their view. Now, I think there's been quite a bit of discussion since that paper was launched. And one of, at least from an ill-re perspective, one of my views is, and we'll explore this more tomorrow in the fishbowl debate, is that we can actually meet a lot of the development concerns within the priorities and strategies that are there for the CG system. And I think we invested a lot of time in ill-re and trying to influence those priorities and strategies, and I think at least on the livestock agenda, they're quite relevant to development. But as a research institute, one of the points that I picked up this, it says, we have an inwardly looking bias on excellence. Some people take that very hard because I thought striving for excellence. How do we cope with that? Well, I guess two things. I think striving for excellence is probably a good thing. It depends on what you're striving for and what is the niche of the CG IAR. One of the criticisms in that report was that we were claiming to do frontier science. And I think if you look at the ill-re agenda, it seems to me that we're not competing with the oxfords and the tigers and other people to do frontier science. We're trying to take those tools and adapt them to be relevant for development issues, but keeping to our research agenda, there's lots of other development agencies around. Well, I get the impression that you and Carlos are, like much more, the development body's words than the science council. You're moving the institute. I mean, are you the, given Carlos's Latin American background, are you the Shea Guevara's of the CG system? I think far from it, I think if you look at the different centres and their positioning on the research and development continuum as you might have, we're probably right in the middle somewhere. We're trying to do research and look at larger issues rather than going into communities and saying, OK, what can we make happen with rural enterprise or development activities. So I think we're still trying to focus on research, but our argument and research, but in the broad sense of research, is kind of systematic inquiry of important questions, and that we're trying to apply these to development issues. And that is where we do have a problem. I mean, I think putting that across in the MTP, the science council and others say that the MTP is the critical document on which we're going to be measured. And you've got to give the science council full marks for picking up a few gems in our MTP, and this is one lovely one where we had as an output target the influence and role of livestock-related policy research and other information on policy decisions and change evaluated. So clearly one of your drivers, John, has been to move us into this output to outcomes and trying to think how we're going to do next. Are we going to be ready for the next MTP to have those things delivered? This is an important question. How we're trying to position ourselves for the next MTP is in two ways, and I kind of described them yesterday morning. One is to build up our kind of logic so we don't get those kind of waffly outputs that you just described, that they're really built on what's feasible and achievable, but also it's coherence with an outcome link. And on the other hand, then trying to look at an overall ill re-strategy, how do we position ourselves to provide a context for our different operating project and theme activities? International public goods. Is there a preoccupation with international public goods that is impeding our ability to have impact? I guess there's two issues here as I see them. One is, I mean, we can't change the fact that we're a research institute working in a global environment in which the focus is on global public goods. And this is actually a good thing because the more their public goods and the more they can be applied in different places, the more effective our research outputs will be. So I view that as a good thing. This is a challenging thing to do though because if you think about who's funding us and how we work, we can't work everywhere. And people are often funding us on their development donors and they're funding on a bilateral basis. So it's quite a challenge to fit the pieces together in different parts of the research puzzle. OK. I've talked about outside forces. Now let's talk a little bit about inside. You have a very good working relationship with Carlos, I believe. And in the past we've had different links between Directors General and Directors of Research. We had one in which it was... Well, we had Jack Doyle, for a ill-rad point of view, in which it was all done very well, but in that office we then had Akivan who decided that she couldn't cope. And now we've got the pair of you. One thing that concerns me is that because you do seem to get on very well and you both agree with each other and you both pat each other on the back, are we going to see you going on a crusade rather than being critical internally? Very nice question. I'm not the crusader type. You know me quite well. And Carlos, we're always instructing him to pick his battle. So I think he's losing the crusade perspective if he ever had it. It's important that we work together and it's important that everybody work together in teams. I guess one of my observations over the many years of watching are my predecessors that you've described, is that this teamwork is very important. And that we talk a lot. We don't always agree when we're in meeting, either in private more than in public. But no, it's important that we work together as a team. We've tried to do that. You have a lot of people reporting to you. How many do you have reporting to you? I think about 14 actually. So you have a major responsibility as a manager? Indeed. How do you reconcile that with being a research director too? Well, some of my, I have two really classes of people who report to me in a primary supervisor role. Obviously the theme directors are of primary interest and in our relationship in MC, I mean it's kind of a teamwork in terms of how we work. Then the other group of people are really people who are either trying to implement things on a regional basis so it's still the same kind of structure or research managers, intellectual property managers, grant managers who are really supporting the research agenda. So it's a little more coherent than a broad group of reportees. But I think we're also trying to look at ways of rationalizing that kind of workload as well. And how do you weave in the money raising into that rather heavy workload, John? Well, we're going to have quite an interesting discussion on this tomorrow, but it's an absolutely crucial thing in terms of strengthening our ability to do long term research. I think one of the roles of the research director is that I'm in a position where I can articulate to donors what our research agenda is and how it can meet their needs, which tends to be quite important. In helping for core donations and looking at opportunities and then sharing that information, I see that as my role, but not in writing proposals, etc. But what is your role in the quality of research that is being conducted here? Well, I'm trying to play an important role on a couple of fronts. One is on the focus, I mean that we can't do everything and how things fit together. I think the other thing is just some simple criteria. And I think there's still room for improvement on that, but to make sure that we have it right on research methods, which we heard about yesterday. To make sure that we've covered the bases on gender, intellectual property and some of these other things. To try and raise the general game of what happens in research proposals. Mastri, do you enjoy your job? Most days. Especially today. John, thank you very much indeed.