It's great to be here, and especially with the, surrounded by the panel paintings of the late Plantagenets and Tudors, and of course, not forgetting the great panel by the door, which you may have noticed is King Athelstan, the subject of today's talk, Mwllt Grand Chivalier, as a medieval, later medieval writer called him. As you heard, this has come out of a long project trying to do a big book on Athelstan, and the project has been long delayed, not just by all those film documentaries, but by the difficulty of deciding some of the crucial problems of the rain, textual problems, and of course, among those problems, is the location of the great event of the rain, the Battle of Brunambur, his defeat of a North Irish and North British coalition in 937 that had invaded England. It's not just of antiquarian interest. Athelstan was an overlord. He kept the parts of his empire in subjugation by the coercive arrangements of an overlord. His subject kings were opposing him in this war, and therefore it would be very interesting to know where it was fought. Was the overlord fighting deep inside his territory? Was he on the fringe of his territory? These are questions. A narrative of those events at the end of his reign, especially in the light of the collapse of his empire at his death, albeit temporary, would be very helpful for us to understand the rain. So that's the issue, and that's the issue that he is in a contemporary painting. We'll come to the general view of these events in a few moments, because there is an established view, but bear in mind, I would say, as you follow these arguments, that great events leave traces. Let's start. People are still struggling. How's that, everybody? Can you get that? Yeah, great. We're going to start with this text. Absolutely fascinating text. We're going to counter the Battle of Brunambur written in about 980 by a member of the royal family, Alderman Athelwyrd. The original manuscript of his chronicle was burned in the cotton fire in 1731, but very luckily Henry Savill did a beautiful addition of it. And there is Athelwyrd's account of these events, written in a chronicle addressed to his kin's woman, Matilda, the abbess of Essen in Germany. He reminds her in the covering letter at the front, which is worth everybody's time to read, that of course Athelstan was her great uncle, it was her grandmother who Athelstan had sent to marry Otto of Germany. So there's a family connection here, and here he is in his account of Athelstan. This rex robustism was a very powerful king in the 12th year of his reign, the 13th year of his reign, sorry. There took place a gigantic battle, pugna imannis against the barbarians in the place called, he doesn't call it Brunambur, he calls it Brunandun. That hill will come back to you, the question of the hill. It's so big that from then on in popular speech, Belum prannominatur magnum, it was called the Great Battle in popular parlans, or even we might say the Great War. Then the barbarian forces everywhere were, they dominated no longer. Afterwards he himself, it's singular, drove them off the shores of the ocean. The Picts and the Scots submitted, and the fields of Britain, Britannides ava, there was peace everywhere, an abundance of all things rising the standard of living. Archiologists would say. From that time to this, no fleet of the barbarians has ever come to these shores without treaty. A couple of years later Athelstan died. It's a fabulously elusive passage, gives you a sense of how the Anglo-Saxon, the old English ruling class in the 980s, the end of the peace of Edgar just before Ethelred's reign starts to run into trouble. How they viewed these events, and there's other accounts give us the same picture. Alfred the Great, homilist pupil of Saint Athelworld says that in the last, in the hundred years between Alfred and the Great Army of the Vikings and the peace of Edgar, there were two great events, namely Alfred's victory at Eddington and the Battle of Brunambur that guaranteed the packs of Edgar, if you like. Will Stan Cantor talks about this gigantic battle with a horrendous slaughter, he says, against this army of the pagans. So that's how they're seeing it. It's not true, of course, some of it. It's not true that everything was peaceful after the battle. In fact, there was 15 years of warfare back and forwards between Northumbria and the Wessex kingdom. Certainly, hostile fleets came to Britain, but that's the story they told. I'll leave you with that backstory then before we turn to the events of the battle. I think these are the things that are worth remembering. You will recall the desperate battles of Alfred the Great and with his mercy and allies in the eight seventies, eighties and nineties, of course, against the Danish armies. We know a lot more about them now with remarkable discoveries at Torxsea, which are in the Journal of the Society with amazing photographs. Huge winter camp at Torxsea of 55 hectares. These are big armies. That's what they're fighting. The kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons, which is what they called it, which is the joint Mercian and West Saxon kingdom with a treaty line down Wattling Street in the River Lee. In the 910s, under Alfred's daughter, Athelflad, and his son, Edward, they pushed their kingdom dismantling local Danish forces, some of the big Danish fortresses, the Danish leaders in East Anglia and the East Midlands. They get up to the Mercy, probably not including Lincolnshire. That's what new numismatists think at the moment. Lincolnshire still gave allegiance to the kingdom of York up to Athelstan's accession. Just to give you an idea what lies beyond that red line, if I can call it that these days. There's no symbolism to my choice of colours here. A powerful kingdom of Northumbria. We call it the Viking Kingdom of York, but it's the Kingdom of Northumbrians. The Northumbrian Church and the Northumbrian aristocracy of Anglian descent are still part of the supporters of these kings of Scandinavian origin who rule from York, and whose kinsmen also rule in Dublin and control allies in Southern Ireland, Northern and Eastern Ireland, the Western Isles. They are a very powerful entity. They make marriage alliances with West Saxons, but also with the Scots. Athelstan makes a treaty with them in 926, and a marriage alliance with one of his sisters, with Citrish. But when Citrish dies and Citrish's cousin or brother Guthrith comes over from York to claim the throne, Athelstan invades Northumbria and this is the moment when the kingdom of all the English materialises. This is my rough delineation of the campaign in 927, at least part of it. He forces the kings of the Scots and Strathlide Welsh to submit to him at Eamont Bridge near Penrith, a religious ceremony of oath taking at the Church of Dacre, which was associated with the cult of St Cuthbert. He goes and visits the tomb of St Cuthbert at Chesterle Street. Guthrith escapes him, sieges York, so he has to come back down, defeat Guthrith, and after a series of events Guthrith surrenders to him, returns to Dublin and a kingdom of all the English, albeit under military hegemony is created in 927. And they were conscious of this historic moment. Cata dirige gresus says a continental poet in Athelstan's entourage writing a poem to the royal family in Winchester from the north of England, echoing Ovid letters, send when your way across land and sea to the royal palace down in Winchester, to the queen mother, to the heir. King Athosan lives glorious through his deeds in Isdalperfecta Saxonia. You can see it, lines two and three lines from the bottom there with the abbreviation, can you see? And on the opposite page, Constantine, the king of the Scots is loyal in his service. So for the first time, the kings of North Britain are actually under the hegemonic rule of the kings of the south. And here's a map to help us on our way. I don't intend you to read very much into this, but it shows you what we're dealing with. The Scots up there, the Strathclyde Welsh under their own king, Northumbria vast frontier land with the earls of Bambra now giving their allegiance, the Anglian earls of Bambra giving their allegiance to Athelstan, the kings of Wales, which are quite a few, all under his hegemony. I spoke about the coercive arrangements of the overlord. They include tribute paying, huge tributes, regular attendance in the king's house, in the king's hall, attendance on the king at the great religious festivals, rituals of hegemony no doubt and participating in the king's hosting when he raises an army. So this is the nature of the imperium of the West Saxons and wonderful series of documents. Some of you will have seen these in the exhibition at the British Library not long ago. Give us a real sense in personnel of the rulers and the subdued with the kings of Wales attesting in these huge, and the kings of Scots, the Strathclyde Welsh attesting these huge gatherings of sometimes more than 100 magnates are attesting the charter. So these are gatherings of maybe 1,000, 2,000 people and among them the earls of the Danelaw and of East Anglia who have given their allegiance to the new king of all the English. And you can see there the list of the earls and dukes, but some of them Scandinavian. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 down. Urm begins a very powerful earl, probably the Danish earl of Leicester, one of the five borers. Further down we can't place Ingvar or Halfton, but down at the bottom, Skullian Hada from East Anglia, Skullian Suffolk. And in the middle, Osulf and Uchtred from the Royal House of Bambra, the kinsmen of Bernard Cornwell's Uchtred in the last kingdom if I can digress for a moment. So that's the nature of the hegemony and that's what's going to bring together this coalition which will invade in 937 to try and destroy the great king, the Vasilefs, the curagallus of the whole of the island of Britain. Rex Totius Britanniae, he ladles out these grand titles and seems to be able to demonstrate them. And the fury of his enemies is brought out in the most famous of the Welsh prophetic poems, the Armes Prydain, which talks about the possibility of an alliance between all the enemies to defeat the great king.  So the immediate crisis comes in 934 when the king of the Scots breaks his treaty. We don't exactly know how but he breaks the terms of his treaty with Atholstan and Atholstan in retribution assembles a great army in Winchester at Pentecost in 934. Ae Totius Britanniae executus, an army drawn from the whole of Britain. And they, it's a mounted army, they go up, we can trace them in the documents, Nottingham in York, Chesterlis Street, they're there on the 1st of July and then incredibly across the forth up to Donatar in Concordinshire and Fortriw Cathness, it's the first mention in any literary text of Cathness. It was both a land and a naval force, our sources say, and whether the land force went as far as the north of Scotland, like Edward I in the 13th century, we don't know, maybe it was just the naval forces devastated the Cathness. It was a vastatio, as they called it, and faced with this overwhelming display of force, Constantine the king of the Scots has to surrender and repledge his allegiance. As you'll see, the arrow coming down, amazingly we've got a document from Buckingham on the 13th of September with Constantine present, so clearly this is the army coming back down. They spent mid December, they're in Frum again with Welsh kings, signing the charter, testing the charter, and Christmas in Dorchester, where three Welsh kings and Eugenius Owain, the king of the Strathclyde Welsh, are testing. So, that clamp down begins, and in Sir Ancestor, in first half of 935, probably Easter, five kings are in attendance on Athelstan in Sir Ancestor in the great city, formally built by the Romans, the charter says, and Constantine is among them. So, they've reached the point now where armed resistance to the great king is inevitable, but it can only be achieved by a grand alliance just as the Welsh poet thought, and the grand alliance comes in 937. Of course, our most famous account of this, we don't know very much about the course of the events, I'm going to try and explore them a little more. The north of England, it's fair to assume, was the subject, at least the first object of the invasion. And all we know from the most famous Old English source, the famous poem on the Battle of Brunambu, translated by Tennyson, Orden, wonderful gloss on it, by Borges, the Argentinian laureate, all we know is that an army jointly of the Scots and the North British and the Scandinavian Irish was defeated at a place called Brunambu with immense slaughter. Never since, as the history books tell us, the poem says at the end, never was there such a great slaughter since the Angles and the Saxons first came across the wide waves of Elbrad Brimw, Brichtena Sochdan, seeking out Britain. There's the first famous lines here, Atholstan Cunning, you can see it there. Erledrithan Bernebergifor, the Giver of Rings, and his brother Edmund Athling. Aldolang na Tyria Slogan, et cetera, Swerda Edgwm, Imbe Brunambu, Bordweil Klufan, Hio anheffalinda, Hamor a Lathan, Afaran Edwiardus, that's children of Edward. It doesn't tell us much about the battle except there was a huge fight, spears clashing in the end, they were driven into flight, the Merseons and the West Saxons defeated them, the North Irish fled across the sea back to Ireland at some point and the Scots back to their own land. If we look for more detail to try to get a picture of what actually happened, let's look at one or two other sources. This was written probably within a very, very short time of the battle. It may be our earliest account. It's from the annals of Ulster in Armar and they are in receipt of the news from the defeated side of the North Irish, North British coalition. You can see it in the middle of the text there. An immense battle, lamentable and horrible between the English and the North men was fought crudellata savagely, savagely fought in which many thousands of the North men who cannot be numbered were killed. But the king himself, that is unlawf, with a few escaped. On the other side however, a multitude of the English were killed too. Atholstan however, the king of the English came away with a great victory. It's a fascinating passage isn't it, although it gives us no information whatsoever about what actually happened. Now we go to the bottom of this page here. This is a text written, a short series of annals written in Chesterla Street, which was then the Shrine of St Cuth, but in the first half of the second quarter of the 10th century. A new hint start to emerge here. First of all, the battle is not called Brunambor, it's called Wendun. I'll come back to that. It's an important clue. But the battle was fought against unlawf, Guthfridson and the fleet from Ireland who came with 615 ships, that is by far the biggest fleet of any named in our sources for the whole Viking period in the British Isles. Against Constantine the King of the Scots and the King of the Combrorum, he calls them Strathclydewarch, and they won. That's again very close to the time. Other material, other material that we've got that gives us any kind of clue, ranges in often intractable ways, but this is a 17th century translation of the annals of Clon-Macnoes and it's very circumstantial and it obviously comes from a source from the first half of the 10th century, second quarter, even though this is all we have. It has unique information about the content of the army that went over from Ireland and even gives us details on the dating. That's the form in which it is. Here's a transcription. The Danes of Lochry, that is a big Viking army that had been in Central Ireland in the middle of 937, were attacked by Unlawf Guthfridson on the 1st of August. We know that. Press ganged into joining the fleet, they came to Dublin, then Unlawf with all the Danes of Dublin and the north part of Ireland departed and went overseas. They arrived in England and with the help of the Danes of that kingdom. This is a very, very important piece of evidence, which is not only in Irish sources. It appears in later English sources as well. There were Danes within England who can only be from Northumbria and the five boroughs, or the five boroughs. They gave battle to the Saxons on the plains of Othlin. Something's garbled in that between the two manuscripts and we don't know what that means. There was a great slaughter of the Northmen and the Danes. The ensuing captains were killed and there are sons of Cytrich, leaders with Irish names. Gibai Akhan, the King of the Western Isles, is an important Viking leader of the Hebrides. Kerlach Prince of Scotland, the old English poem on Brunambu, says that the King of Scots lost his son and there he's named. There's casualty figures, some of which are realistic, 800 men in the captains that should read from the manuscript around Arlawf Guthfridson. They're probably like platoon leaders, top Thainly kind of people. 4,000 men in the King of Denmark's own guard. What that means, we don't know, and fantasy figures for the Scots. That's all we know in terms of location and detail from any early source. Out of that, here's a map drawn for me by Sam Newton. Out of that, over the last two or three hundred years, this is a very long controversy. About 30 or 40 different places have been suggested for the site of Brunambu, ranging from Dumfrieshire, down to Leighton Buzzard, Leighton Brom's World and Bedfordshire, born in Lincolnshire, Lanchester, some of you may have seen Professor Breeze putting the claims forward for Lanchester. It's always been called Lanchester, but never mind. Holding the field, Bromba in the Whirl. Bromba in the Whirl, first suggested in the 1930s, the name is probably identical to Brunambu, the fort or the enclosure of Bruna. There are problems though, although this is now in all the textbooks and 500 page case book published recently on it, there are problems. The name only appears in the 12th century, and Bromba is not called Bromba in Dumfrieshire. There is no guarantee that the name is pre-12th century, but it is the only piece of evidence that attaches the Whirl conceivably to these events. There is no other evidence that the site could be there. So, what follows is really offered to you on the basis of let's keep an open mind. Historians proceed by hypothesis when they don't know the answers. Let's see if a chain of argument can be assembled. Let's see if these things stand up. Does this source really say what I think it says, or am I leading it to an argument that I want to go on? You've heard my summary of the politics of Viking Age Northumbria, and landing fleets in the Humber from Ireland, that's what happened in 940, 939, 940 for example.  The idea that this vast expedition might have sailed into the D, or the mercy, and escaped from there, is on the face of it hard to imagine. But let's look at what the sources actually tell us. In 1122, very good historian John Wuster wrote a chronicle of the early history of England in Wuster. He had access to a lot of interesting sources. He had access to a set of animals from York, which had found their way to Wuster because York and Wuster had been held together under the same bishop in the late English period. And from that set of animals, he hasn't made this up. He says, the pagan king of Ireland, Unloff Guthriss, of Ireland and many islands, and of course he is the overlord of the king of the Western Isles as well, he's with him on the expedition as we've seen, incited by his father-in-law, the king of Scots, Constantine, sailed into the estuary of the river Humber with a king of Scots. Sailed into the estuary of the river Humber with a huge fleet. He then goes on in Latin to amplify this brief account by a short Latin summary of the old English poem on Bruno Bohr. Now, if that is true, and had this not been controversial, nobody would have ever doubted that John Wuster's account with its circumstantial annals from the second quarter of the 10th century, annals connected with the West Saxon battles with the Northumbrians, which can be linked to other source material. No one would have doubted that this was true. And as I say, that kind of picture can be shown to have taken place in the 940s with fleets from Ireland. And bearing that in mind, let's look at one or two sources which have not been considered in this whole argument, which throw entirely new light on these questions. First of all, in the late 1120s, the great historian, William Marnesbury, the greatest historian after Bede, discovered a certain very old manuscript, probably in the library of Glastonbury, which was a verse biography of King Athelston, from which he extracted pages of material as a prose preface and gives us 63 lines of what purports to be verbatim verse. Now, there's been a long argument about this. And 40 years ago, our greatest Latinist of this period, Michael Lappage, suggested these quotes had just been made up in the 12th century and we can't pay them any attention. And that has been the view. However, Professor Lappage's own work gives the tools to show that his earlier judgment was not correct. Now that we have a lot more examples of the Latin written in the later 10th century, we can see that what William Marnesbury has given us here is a versioning purporting to be a literal translation, but a versioning of a late 10th century poem in Latin hexameters. And it retains, I won't get too complicated, it retains the rhyme schemes, caudati and Leonini, the internal rhymes, the rhyme with the last word on the cesiura with the end of the verb, can you see, interis and then the rhyme at Aquilonis. Even the end rhymes, tiranos and britannos, which are bi-syllable caudati. These forms of Latin were thought to have not been developed in England in the 10th century, but now we know that they are. This is a very close representation of a 10th century poem. Let's see what it tells us. What does that add up to? 5, 9, 12 years. Yes, 12 years past, reining his citizens, ruling his citizens by law, subduing tyrants by Virtus, and then the hateful plague of Europe came again. Y amgylwbart yn teres ffera barbarias Aquilonis. The barbarian monster clamped on the land. In teres Aquilonis, this is standard Anglo-Latin for Northumbria. That is the way you wrote Northumbria in Latin. The phrase ffera barbarias comes from the Merovingian poet Benantius Fortunatus, who is very much imitated in the late 10th century. This, to cut a long story short, is a close versioning of a late 10th century poem. It goes on further. They left the sea and camped on the land, breathing dreadful threats. There are references in both the old English poem and the Latin poem to the words, the boasting, the threats, as if diplomacy had taken place which had been very hostile and very bitter. It probably indicates some kind of contact between the kings to try to negotiate a peace. At the will of the king of the Scots, Scotorum regae volente, comodat ascensum borealis terra sereinum. Again, borealis terra Aquilonis, Plaga and so on. This is conventional Latin for Northumbria and this has not been correctly translated in any source. Moreover, comodat ascensum sereinum, they gave willing ascent, happy ascent, they submitted happily to the invaders in Northumbria. All again the references to the noise, they frightened the air with their words. Cedant indigenai, the local people submitted. The whole province submitted to the proud. So you have three references there to the province of the Northumbrians, two of them. So what's clear in this text from a reliable historian is that the Northumbrians submitted in 937 to the invaders. And that means, of course, in the region of York, just as we would have suspected from other material. And out of this, I'm going to throw a few real hypotheticals at you now because I'm trying to build up a tentative picture from this. You'd get a chronology something like this. Take it with a pinch of salt, of course. We don't know. First of August, we know Anne Lafguthrason and his army attacked the Vikings on Locherie and returned with them to Dublin. Then they all left Dublin, let's say early August. One of the Irish annals recounts an attack by one of Guthrason's leaders on a shrine in Strangford-Loth. So maybe that gives a little indicator. The King of the Hebrides joins them. Maybe that's mid-August. Fortnight later, they round and into the Humber. In the summer, it's an easy journey. And the Northumbrians submit by the beginning of September. If that hypothesis, which is based on John of Worcester and the William of Monsbury text, others support it, will come to them in a minute. Then what we're really looking at is that zone there for the War of 937. York at the top, Darby and Nottingham at the bottom. There are two main routes. One which goes York through Castleford and then all the way down to Darby and Nottingham, the left-hand route, the other across the Trent and down to Lincoln. But we can be pretty sure that the main route would have been the left-hand route. This is a map I've drawn showing five campaigns from the 920s, 30s and 40s where we precisely know the routes that the army took. The poem of 942 describes Edmund's army, for example, stopping its march at a line drawn between door and wittwell gap near Worksoff, that grey line cutting across. There's a battle at Castleford in 948. There's a submission at Townshelf near Pontrefact in 947. There's no doubt, even the routes used by the Viking armies going south, and Lough Guthrisson when he attacks the five boroughs in 940, goes all the way down to Leicester and beyond, comes down this route. This is the route of the war, probably, I would say. It's a good assumption that that's the main military route in the wars between the West Saxons and the Northumbrians, because this is what this war is, the Northumbrians with escots allies. So, what happened? Well, William Mumsbury's quote goes on to give us some very interesting detail which has never been considered by any historian, because the poem attacks Athelstan for his failure to act, for his failure to move swiftly against the invaders, of standing back as it were, deeming his service done, it says at the top, while they destroyed everything with their terrible rage, the peasants being driven off the fields, the fields being set on fire. And again, the characteristic rhyme schemes of the late 10th century, Anglo-Latin, are there to be seen with the rhymes at the end, the rhymes between sentences, internal rhymes, totis viridantia graminar phrase from Valencius Fortinatus. So great was the force of infantry, so great was the horsemen, innumerabilium concursus quadru pedantum, it's a tour de force hexameter with a multi-syllable ending in meter. Eventually, it says, the complaining rumourised Athelstan and he moved. Elsewhere, William Mumsbury says, who'd read the whole text, of course, these are just edited bits of this text, says actually the real reason was of course the threat was so enormous that he had to delay and delay until he gathered big enough forces to be able to confront them, not like Harold in 1066 for example. Now, it's very interesting, this story of a great delay before Brunambur doesn't appear just in William Mumsbury. It's a major feature, for example, of the famous Saga, Egil Saga from the 13th century. It's a fictional account of these events, but it's certainly a fictional account of Brunambur, and in it there's a very long delay between the battle which the Saga writer embroidered us with diplomatic to-ing and fro-ing as Athelstan deliberately keeps them on edge in the diplomacy while he's gathering his army. Now, here's where numismatics has a place to play and I'm sure, like Michael Dolly, in fact I can remember coming here as a student and hearing the great Michael Dolly do a lecture, used to say you have to use the totality of the evidence and coinage is proving all sorts of interesting stuff here and new finds are being made all the time, some of them specifically with these events like 927, the Harrogate Horde for example. And some quite a few years ago now, Christopher Blunt, who was the expert on Athelstan, wrote a great study of the coinage of Athelstan, noticed a strange phenomenon that late in Athelstan's reign in York and in Derby and in Nottingham, double reverses are produced by the official mint, as if the moneys didn't want to show the king's image. And name on their coins, but keep producing coins. And the most striking example of this is Nottingham, where 10 coins have survived from Athelstan's Nottingham mint and seven of them are these made by the official mint. You can see top quality coins here. And Blunt suggested that the possible context for these were that Athelstan's rule north of the Trent collapsed in 937 and that for a period, while nobody knew what the outcome was going to be, the period was long enough for the moneys to carry on minting coins, but they minted these coins. We don't know the answer, but it's a very, very interesting question. And there's some evidence for that picture elsewhere. Again, which has escaped the people writing about this, the Chronicle of Thomas of Castleford, which is early 14th century, but local detail and data, Thomas of Castleford says that when the Scottish army had occupied Yorkshire, marched through Yorkshire, they then turned south, and that the Athelstan's knights, his thanes, in other words, the military on the estates in Darmyshire and Nottinghamshire, were there to defend that frontier land, all fled beyond the Trent. Now, it's a very late source, but it's very circumstantial. And again, I'm dealing in hypotheses, but it's an interesting question, isn't it? It makes sense. Now, I'm going even more hypothetical now, so you're going to have to be very patient with my whimsy perhaps. It would look something like this if this chain of hypothesis works. September, Athelstan, you can ride down to Winchester in three days from Northumbria, gathers his army. He's got the news. The invaders raid into Mercia. The William and Momsbury text describes terrible plundering raids devastating the countryside, probably deep into Northern Mercia. In October, maybe, Athelstan marches up into the war zone. Time what I've put in is a speculation. It's central, and his Mercian allies are very, very important to him. He's a Mercian. He's their guy, and they are important in the battle. And diplomacy between the two sides takes place. The battle then would be end of October. It could be November. It could even be early December. One of our Irish sources makes it look as if it was almost at the end of the year. Constantine and unlove Guthrason fleet Scotland. Guthrason's return to Dublin is not given in the Irish sources until after Easter, so he hasn't just sailed in a day and a half from that we're all back to Dublin. Now, where was the battle for? This is the final stage of my argument, if you like. Let's look again at that line, the military roots of the armies in the second quarter of the 10th century. And let's go back to the source that we saw at the beginning. A Chesterla Street source doesn't call the battle Brunambu, it calls it Wendun. Wendun, as Professor Margaret Gelling showed in a characteristically brilliant and inclusive article. Wendun is not just any old hill. It's not just a tumulus. It's a major feature of the landscape. It's a massif, if you like. And the first element, Wendun, when could be any feature of the landscape that makes sense to us doesn't sound like a personal name, but it could be a river name. And if you look back into our zone of conflict, then right across the middle of the picture there is indeed a river with a WEN. And it is astounding that this has never been discussed by any of the scholarship on Brunambu. Sometimes viewed as A H Smith shows in his great survey on the place names of the West Riding, sometimes actually used actually the frontier of the Northumbrians, the southern frontier. It varies where that is. The Went. And if you drive up from on the A1 from the south, then this is what you see as you approach the river Went. A very big Dun, Went Hill, Went Hill. Carry that in mind because of course what we're really searching for is Brunambu and here's the next astounding turn up. We mainly rely on the spelling of Brunambu, B-R-U-N-A-N-B-U-R-H, fought of Bruna, by the Bruna. We mainly rely on the Anglo-Saxon, the Old English Poem, the famous poem. And that appears in several manuscripts. We rely on the A manuscript, corpus 173. But that, which is written in 955-ish, but that is not the most accurate version of the poem. A better text is in B. And B spells it with a double N. And so does C, which derives from the exemplar of B. You can, I think, see, you can see the divide of the poem, nearly about a third the way down. And three lines down into that you can see with a separation between the two ends, Brunambu. The spelling is a double N. And here's the A manuscript, the most famous manuscript of the chronicle. And if you look there at the beginning of the poem you'll notice the scribe has put in, three lines down, a little extra N above the single N. So three of our, the key three manuscripts of the poem in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, actually spell it in that way. And they're not the only ones. Siminio of Durham in the Libelus has two spellings from a vernacular source, although he's in Latin you can see at Brunambu. And that's a northern source, that's a northern source, independent of the Anglo-Saxon chronicle. If you tabulate those, then this is what you get, it's interesting, isn't it? How the most obvious things on the principle of turning no stone unturned, you get that. Now there's certainly a question to be asked, I think, I'm not a philologist, but there is a question to be asked, isn't there? And then you look, what was the editorial principle looking at this name? Well the answer is, in the editions of the poem, it was in 1938 that the single N spelling became canonical and nobody paid any more attention to the double N. The 500-page case book published recently has no interest in the double N. But prior to 1938, Charles Plummer, in his edition, put the top one for manuscript A with an extra apostrophe N in it. Nora Kirshaw, Benjamin Thorpe, all the early editors simply spelled Brunambu with two Ns. Even Sir Frank Stenson spelt it with two Ns before the Campbell edition of 1938. So it's not merely a matter of the relative weight of these manuscripts. And of course, the version in B and C, the version in B is a better text of the poem. It's how editors have approached it, it's misleddus. And it's not merely a matter of how you spell it, it means something different. Brunambu with a double N means the bull at the spring now. Where on the great north road would you find a fort and a prominent spring? And the answer is next door to Went Hill, to Wendun. There it is. Robin Hood's Well, St Helen's Well. It's the most famous and copious spring on the great north road. And even more striking than that. The spring rises inside the Roman fort and the Roman road has been realigned twice to include that. And there you can see in the aerial picture the shape of the fort. The left-hand side of it's been demolished by the road but it's still there visible. There's something else to say about this place. It's a very remarkable place in northern history. Because this is the place where the Northumbrians traditionally met the southern rulers. This is where Adventus ceremonies took place, where the Northumbrians met Edward IV and submitted him. It's where the army on the pilgrimage of grace assembled the 36,000 strong northern army to contest Henry VIII. It's where after the failure of the pilgrimage of grace the chastened gentry of Yorkshire made their submission to Henry VIII. And this goes right back in time. Southern kings on their itineraries stopped close by either here or at Hamphill in 947. Aardred, Athelstan's half-brother takes the submission of the Northumbrians a mile or two to the north of Wenthill at Tanshelf. So it's a very significant place in Northumbrian history. The data here is from A.H. Smith, a place name of West Yorkshire. It's also part of a network of bull names from the Viking age which Smith thought show are spacing south. Most of them are Scandinavian names, some of them big, Connysbrough. And there is our fort at the spring, but it has lost its prefix by doomsday and is simply recorded as bull. But it is the bull at the spring. So there you go. I'm going to finish now. I hope I've tantalised you first of all because it's a chain of suppositions isn't it? Because Bernard Bischoff says in a famous, very famous piece on Charlemagne's library, everything that I've told you is a chain of supposition and none of the links can be proved beyond any doubt. But when you put it all together it makes a cogent case which is better than any other case. Bischoff says, and I'm suggesting to you that I don't know where Bramble was, but this seems to me to have much more going for it in terms of the historical sources, the context of Northumbria, the new mismatics, the totality of the evidence as Michael Dolly would say, than any of the places marked on that map. And I'm finally, many questions still arising, but I hope I've shown you how by squeezing the data, I'd given up on this 20 years ago and it was only when I looked back at the priority of the spelling of Wendun and it was only when I looked back at the manuscript evidence for Brunambour dissatisfied with the 500 pages of the casebook and the Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England, all those things that assume Brombra that I looked again. And it's our job as historians to keep an open mind on things, to work by a hypothesis to move the argument forward. And I've no doubt that more discoveries are to be made, especially in new mismatics. There's an interesting hoard of 66 coins of Athelstan turned up just close to York at the moment, deposited late in his reign with more of these double reverses. And also, I'll leave you with the last thought, memorialisation. You know, we look at the great kings on the continent, Charles the Bald, Louis the Pius. And we think of later kings, William the Conqueror, Henry IV. And we memorialise a great battle like this, where untold losses were caused. And Athelstan's two cousins were killed in the battle, buried in Marmosbury. The English losses were huge. In what way do you commemorate? In what way do you acknowledge the enormous losses in the war in Northumbria, which obviously extended into the following year, judging by our sources up into the Cumbria? Is there any truth in the St Leonard's cartillary story that the famous hospital of St Peter later became St Leonard, founded by Athelstan after the Battle of Brunibyr? Is there any truth in that story? It would make a lot of sense as a Carolingian king doing something like that. Did he even leave a memorial chapel on the spot? Interesting questions. And with that, I will leave you.


Welcome back everyone. We are moving to the the last and final panel discussion of the three days of workshop. The panel discussion is will be going to address the way forward the short term action and the long term plans. We have four panelists speakers for this panel discussion representing the four collaborators and collaborating organization. Mr. Savitur Epinisoto, Secretary General of International Rubber Study Group. Mr. Vinsanjit, Director C4 FTA Program. Dr. Rabdu Lassi, Secretary General of Fire ADB. And Mr. Jerome Saini Dhu with the Rubber Value Chain Correspondent Sirat. We had three days of deliberate discussions on climate change and its impact on the natural rubber systems. And all the discussions we had last two days and especially today. It is interestingly and emphatically pointed out that there is opportunity for opening multilateral dialogue on mitigation and adaptation strategies on climate change impact on our system. But about natural rubber integration into the international space. LESS is heard about natural rubber. It's an open fact. And what the international fora could do to address this as a way forward on what we heard in the last three days. There is enough scientific evidence and the science science science based results on the impact of climate change on the natural rubber systems and fora. But the doubt is that whether all this information is well communicated. Smartly communicated to the general rubber community or the climate change community is there is a gap in that space, even though we have strong research. And the results based on this. It has to be well communicated and we need collaboration with the private sector to address many of these challenges. As we heard that the business is not as not as usual. It is changing. So how we can address this in a collaborative way from bottom up approach and of course it should be a holistic one. I will pose two questions to all the four panelists speakers and what should be the way forward. I am keeping that open to to address that question. The first one is what do you retain from this event. What stands out. This is a common question. I'm I would like to place that to the four panelists speakers. Maybe I will first give the ball to Mr Vincent. Oh, okay. Thanks. Thanks, Alex, me and for this introduction and thanks. Thank you for the presenter. Just a few statistics because some of our colleagues in the back office just told us maybe interesting to you. We had four 560 registered participants in this workshop and we overshoot our targets and and each day over three or close to 300 participants is Jane not necessarily the same but just to to to give you these numbers I think it's a thank to all of you for participating and also for the lively the very lively chat and question and answer more than 160 questions. Not all have been answered yet. We're going to look into that, but just thank you all for for for the participation, the time and the interest what to retain from from my perspective. You know, I'm not a rubber expert. I come from other fields are related land use climate plantations in general, but I think what is striking with rubber research. First, through what we wanted to do in the science workshop is that there is a very big spectrum of research diversity. And that is also striking when we work in an agricultural organization like the CGI are rubber tree has been what domesticated more than 100 years ago and there's not been so many cultivation cycles. In the planet so and and and and despite that there is there's been a big amount of research immediately targeted to the question of production the technical aspect so very demand driven and very collaborative and that is first very striking from from from, I think from to show also what rubber research can can can do. The second point is, I think the title of this workshop was natural rubber systems and climate change and it's very striking how the work system is very right for for for rubber. Just look at the labor component. There is a need to to understand what can be done. There is some phone ringing but okay it won't last long sorry. You need to understand how the bio physical condition combined with the possibilities of technical itineraries and then how that can also play with with labor for instance the tapping dimension. I found the discussion in the first day very interesting. Then of course systems approach means also. Okay, I'm systems approach means also that you need to consider various components, even also in the in the in the way you look at the environment and has been an interesting discussion in the chat between nutrient recycling and and you know when you the use of wood for the for the bio economy. So, rubber systems. Then, I would say the the the issue of climate vulnerability past interaction with pests and diseases really highlight the importance of monitoring. And there's your question is it monitoring of rubber per se or is it also included in in in the broad agriculture and climate monitoring systems that countries and regions need to put in place. The key points just from the key points to retain I think the centrality of the question of land use we've touched about it. Some now may see wood and perhaps rubber as something bad even if it's natural project just because it may be the result of deforestation etc we the sector needs to bring a response to to this as the first thing and then we have to think of marginal and and and and poor non marginal zone for forever both of them are going to be disrupted by climate change and and and how can we learn lessons from what is going on in marginal areas in terms of future is quite is quite important the last two last points technology transfer we've touched about about that the genetic resource aspects of course, but also I would say the the the technical itineraries how to conduct rubber agroforestry system divide diversified and open to the value chain aspects, the diversification of of produce out of of latex etc and I think that this is a key point for the future. Lastly, I think a key selling point it's a it's a fact, perhaps we need more data we need more quantitative data. How the social aspects and the small holder as I think I mentioned that in his latest intervention, it's very, very important, the climate, the climate action is, is now going to be, you know, people centers we have a call for being more cautious to that even in the current COVID-19 crisis. This is something that is recognized by the SDGs. And that is also a very strong point of this of this workshop, even if it was a climate change oriented workshop. This is the rubber is able to bring a climate change response that is small order, not only small order sensitive but directed to to small orders and then these are the points to retain from my end but I guess there may be many others. Thank you. Thank you Vincent. I am passing the ball to Dr. Aziz. To take a look at the history of rubber. Actually, rubber when it was first planted, you know, basically the, the European is British in Malaysia in different parts, even in Sri Lanka. And they started out as a plantation crop. They did not start out as a small order crop plantation. And then over the years, with the labour problem, everything and then you have got choices. In the case of Malaysia specifically, there is a conversion from rubber, they've gone into oil pump, basically the estate sector. So today you have only about less than 10% of the area and the rubber owned by plantations. So what, what the problem is when we talk about deforestation, everything, unfortunately, you put together all the small orders who own the land. I think this is an important difference because the small orders, they own the land, they saw what estates are doing. And there was a very good collaboration between the estates and the small holdings nearby. They provide planting material. So the small orders realised this is something very, very good. It gives them a steady income. Sometimes we, we refer to it, they are having like an ATM machine behind their house. When they make the money, once it is mature, they can harvest, keep the rubber for some time and then sell. So this is just to give you the history of the thing. Then what has happened? These small holders, now let's assume that we know, we all know rubber is a very good three species. I think ultimately, when you get satellite pictures in the future, we know that there are only about 13 million hectares being planted. And we know that it is a very efficient converter of the, to reduce the carbon dioxide emission, very efficient because producing the latex material. So you have other species. We are only commercialising the heavier residences. So we need to do this. The point I'm trying to make is this. Let's now assume with all this problem of warming, global warming, suddenly somebody tells you, it's good to grow rubber. And then you tell the small holders, please grow rubber. Do you know that to grow rubber, you need the capital. And for us, we are quite lucky. We have got a system, the British level system. You collect sass, you have replanting sass. Other countries don't have that sort of structure. So what happened is the investment is very heavy. That's why when we defend small holders, we feel what they are going through. And I give you another example. When we were doing the expedition, I wrote to the FAO. I said, can you help us with this expedition into Brazil to collect the different species? The response that came back was, rubber is not under the concern of FAO because it's an industry crop. It's a tire company crop. That was the response. So now you can explain why we had the difficulties getting into this crop to get the rubber being registered very clearly. The other problem was there was a deadline in the previous one, Kyoto Protocol, something before certain days. But now I'm very happy, at least we have this opportunity. And I want to thank the C4 people because it's an eye-opener that we now need to sit down together and make the story known. Because you have no less than 10 million small holders and majority of them is their own land. They are not going to the forest to cut their own lands and they invest to grow this rubber. And then when the investment goes sour in a way, price very low for the last, maybe it was good in 2011. After that it just went down and down. So under the current situation, we would like to encourage them to replant. But how can they replant? They are not even able to pay the installment for the television, for the motorcycles. So this has posed a problem. A crop that we say is very good for poverty elevation has become a problem for the small holders who have gone into this. That's number one. Number two, the young people are not interested. They are not interested to go into the rubber planting. Very, very difficult. Many countries try this. Very, very difficult. Unless it is something that they go in, they can see that the return is worthwhile. Because the young people, they are educated, they can see that their parents work very hard for a very meager income. And sometimes now they work hard, the income is so small. So some young people are telling their parents, don't waste your time. We can send you money. In some countries this is happening. Malaysia especially, so their children will send them money. Okay, that one. Now if you want to encourage them to replant, they are not in a position without to replant. So this is the first part that we must understand the industry. It is a small holder industry. It's no more an estate except for those few conditions. I think I have to highlight that. I still have time to continue. I will come back to you for the next round. I like to move that. Okay, I just want to touch on a few other things because we are talking about midterm and long term. The point I'm trying to make is please you know that we have to work together, get all the other species included in the commercial. Very, very important. Just imagine it's a business opportunity.  You are only looking at the European Penicillinities. We must keep a look at this and that's why we want to go to Peru. We hope to get the cooperation of the government there to bring the different European species and then include this in our program for breeding. Thank you for the time being. Thank you, Dr. Rossi. Certainly we heard about this also how we could bring natural rubber in the national adaptation plants and then the ecosystem based approach we could bring in. And certainly that could be a way forward to address the issues you already pointed out the case of small growers. I'm asking the same question to Gerald. So what you could retain from this event and what stand out from a Sirat perspective. Thank you very much. I would like to first of all to thank you for the excellent presentation we have shown during these three days. And I retain the diversity of the type of presentation. We've seen some scientific presentation with state of art, last result of some experiment. And also some feedback from the field from different country. And even bioeconomy, sustainability of wood and climate change policy. I think it's very important and I think it's the first time we have this diversity inside of one workshop. My feeling after these three days is there is a very little scientific knowledge about natural rubber system and climate change. And we're very huge gap. And we need, as you mentioned this morning to have more data about this. This is very important. Just an example. In terms of the understanding of eco physiology mechanism from the carbon of air to the carbon of natural rubber. We have very, very few data on this. And this is, I think, a key problem. How aware we have seen also some data from the positive regularity effect on the climate. And also the positive effect of rubber shoe. But by example, we have not seen some data between this effect and the rainfall. Is there any link between rubber tree forest and rainfall? For the moment I don't know. We have seen also, and it's very good, the capital importance of cover crops associated crops on the entire line. This is very, very good. We also seen some rubber tree should be used for reforestation integrated zone. Remember that also rubber tree is a specific green factor. Perhaps only the only one in the world. And because these three can catch carbon from the air and transform its carbon in polis or train used for the mobility of the people in the world. And this is very, very important. One, I think one topic is not very shown during this workshop is socio-economy topics. We have only a few presentation only from Sri Lanka. About the social aspect and the impact of climate change with the small order problem of line we would. And I think it's necessary to reinforce these topics to have more data of the real life of small farmers in the world. This is very important. And the last last remark for us. As you mentioned, there is a very problem of communication of natural problems in the world. But also a problem of less of data, real data to implement many very important project because we know that there is a problem of finance. The problem is very huge. And this is why it's important to have more communication of data. Thank you very much. Thank you. The same question to you, Mr. Sabatoori. What do you retain from the event and what is the stand out from an IRC perspective? I cannot agree more with my colleagues, of course. I do think that research and development is very important that science when we speak about topics like climate change and impact on natural rubber. It is extremely important. A lot has been done, of course, but a lot, as Jerome said, should be done. And I think now we have to focus our attention on actually the topics that we think are a priority when it comes to research and development. Also because funds are not always available. And I think now everyone has to make an effort to concentrate on what really matters. On the social aspect, I already said before in previous session, I think this sector has a big gap in terms of in collection of data in relation to the social aspects of the natural rubber field. We don't know much. I think many governments don't know much. Some have better information than others, but overall now we have a lack of data. We need absolutely to improve. And I think these are fields that from an IRC perspective could be more and more developed. Because really the sector needs this kind of information. So we need a holistic approach on this, but depends a lot on us. I think when Aziz said or mentioned I went to FAO and they said it's not our business, I think part of the responsibility is ours. Not because we are the guys involved in rubber and we need to create the field such as other big organizations such as FAO or WUNCDA or others actually see rubber as an opportunity to develop, to investigate more, to bring funds. I think we need to have this kind of activity, but it relies on us, on our capability to put together our efforts and to make the case for rubber and natural rubber. So this is what we should do in my view. Okay, thank you Savitura. All the panelists are well aligned in the same thought. Yes, we need to make a big noise on the rubber and the importance of rubber as a sustainable raw material. And what the rubber could play in the sustainable development of the rubber economy. Yes, that is very important and key, but there is missing information and missing data. And we need to properly communicate that into a wider audience. Certainly, we have to prioritize which is the key areas we need to inverse because research needs funding and to bring or attract funding prioritization of the research areas is very much important. So all together looking at the detailed deliberation in the last three days. I would like to hear from all of the four panelists. What do you see as a way forward to address what we heard during the last three days of the discussion. Maybe I'll start that with the Savitura. What is a way forward? The way forward is to me very clear. And first of all, we have to, we will certainly distribute the proceedings of this workshop make available to everyone. We certainly have to have a follow up involving the organization that has been involved in this workshop so IRDP, C4, and CRAD and also others. And we have to find a way to put together an action plan. So we need to act now because the time of long discussion is over and we need really to have some good ideas on how to bring this agenda forward. So this is what I see in very short period of time to try to identify some good action. Thank you. Thank you, Savitura. What about you, Ms. Jerome, on what do you see as a way forward of our three days of discussions on climate change workshop? I totally agree with Savitura. Now it's important that we share the priorities in terms of topics and after how we can together find some institution, public sector, private sector to finance these topics. Because I think we have many, many ideas that we can share together. Very often the problem is that to catch some finance international institution and I think some people from CIFOR mentioned some institution and they help us to finance these topics. So I think as I've mentioned by a battery to put in place action plan to priorities, scientific and topics, and also after how we catch the finance international institution and private sector. Thank you, Jerome. Certainly once we have the action plan and the program in place, the challenge is the funding. So how to leverage on private sector and how the private sector and the international rubber for our could work together to address some of the priority topics we commonly agreed upon and how we can attract funds from the private sector to work on these topics. So all the panelists are well aligned in that thought. And I like to pose the same question to Dr. Assis. What do you see as a way forward on these three days of climate change discussions and its impact on the natural rubber systems? As I mentioned earlier, the opportunity to go for these core meetings and tell the good story of rubber. First, we must convince the NR producing countries. They send delegation. They never include anyone from the rubber sector to go together with that government delegation, which is important. The voice will be heard. On top of that you have NRTC, Association of Natural Rubber producing countries should be also there. IDB, I think important enough for us to be there and to work with the other C4 to bring up these issues so that it will be recognized because it's important to consider that when you talk about food security, you know, small holders, when they're planting rubber, they have to get additional income. So that is happening during the early stages of the plan. And you can have a farming system. This is looking at climate change, everything. That piece of land can be something that is not just grown for rubber, but grown also for food. Because they don't want to wait for the trees to mature. This is another issue I have to highlight. We have to work to reduce the immaturity period. Sometimes it takes them eight years before they can get the income. So in between, while the trees were young, they can have the intercropping. That's one. The other aspect that the way forward, we must also create opportunities for value addition that the small holders can benefit. As it stands now, that's why they are under pressure. They produce rubber, everybody knows is for the tire companies. There are 50,000 products that can be made from natural rubber. But the cooperative will have to be involved. I think some initiatives have been taken to give the opportunity for the small holders to enjoy this value addition. That means if the co-op can get the latex from the farmers, make some product, we saw the acreage. You know, right in the middle of somewhere, they produce. They get the latex, they produce condom. So this sort of deep goods is possible. And we have seen cases in Thailand. They are using that from the latex. They make full products. So this is one area I think looking at the way forward that we need to have the small holders so that they can continue to depend on rubber. My concern now, what we are very worried about, small holders are beginning to say rubber, there is no future for them. They just move away. Once majority of them leave to bring them back, going to be very, very difficult. Then we lose the opportunity. The other thing, this has been highlighted, not much of R&D on climate change. Let me just point out, climate change is a new issue. You know, first, general public know about climate change, 1990. You know, by that book, The Gentleman who wrote The End of Nature, that's how we highlighted. But until today, many people don't believe in climate change. You know, I want to point out that in terms of one crop, so much resources being devoted, so much time, so many researchers involved, worldwide. The oldest rubber institute in the world is Sri Lanka. It's still in existence. It's still doing work for the small holders. So this is a crop that a lot of science, technology and innovation has gone in. It will continue. So I think this is very important. As far as funding, you know, government with this COVID-19 is paralysis of the world's economies. Very, very tough time. And part of the reason why the tyres, you know, they are stuck also because millions of cars are not being sold. Small holders are feeling the pain. So I think we need to have a system whereby some contribution will come. The tyre companies are very concerned. They love the small holders. Why don't they contribute something to help with the research? Then you can tell them now you're not very transparent, we are helping you. They will be very cooperative. That's the direction to go. Otherwise, when do we get the funding? We used to get grant from the common fund of commodities to help the African rubber industry. The three countries, Nigeria, I think you know about this, the laboratory knows about this. But today it's not easy to get funds from some government also are facing difficulty with having to inject stimulus packages. So how do we expect them to come out and help with a further R&D? So things are becoming more difficult. But we have to, we should not give up. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Asis. Certainly, yes, all the panelists as well agreed that we need to communicate. Yes, that means we need to have narratives and storytelling on natural rubber and also bodies are all of small growers in that natural rubber space. So communication storytelling, whether it is story or narratives, all of us have to reemphasize on that. And there is opportunity for opening multilateral dialogue on these topics. Certainly, Vincent can add more into that. And what is a way forward from that perspective? Yes, thank you. Thank you. Like me, I would first support what Dr. Asis, Jérôme Saint-Beuve and Salvatore Tinsotto have said and add to their plea for and I think highlighted by many others. Yes, we need to increase the visibility of the sectors, not only the challenges, the problems, but also the opportunities and the solutions and increasing visibility is a lot about communication. What works very well in communication and when it's done in an evidence-based way, I mean grounded on scientific knowledge and in an organized way. I think the sector is what is already quite well organized with IRSG, with IRDB, other actors to do these two ones, these institutions, IPCC, UNFCCC and other sometimes informal instances. So once, if that is the overarching objective, because I would say, and of course as scientists, we always look at the new research questions, knowledge gaps, and this workshop has led to identify some of those, especially in relation to climate change risks and approaches. But we shouldn't be also too hard on ourselves and I think there is already a breadth of knowledge, a sum of knowledge that exists and that can be communicated. So there could be a value coming from this workshop, the search presentation, but also other research that couldn't make it because we only had three days to make a review article summarizing the state of knowledge and also of knowledge gaps in terms of rubber and climate change and possibilities for way forward. So that's number one, that would take a bit of time, but it's more from the science perspective than communicating to other stakeholders. And first, we need to make the most of this event. I think we need to have, we are the plan with the co-organizers to publish proceedings. Many in the question and answers or in the chat I've asked for the PowerPoints, for even for the recordings, so we'll make that available and we seek to make that available in a nice way. We have the objective and we will discuss that next week with colleagues to write a policy brief with recommendations. I think there has been a range of recommendations coming out of these discussions that could be of value. And I would say what is very powerful in general is when these are joint products, both the proceedings, the recommendation, they come from kind of a consortium that starts from science and scientific organization and generally these joint products are really, really powerful to enter into debate. And then everybody can use that whenever it engages either with science organization like the IPCC or with national or international procedures. And then lastly, I think, well to last point, I think there is, yes, the opportunity of 2021, several big opportunities. First, the climate summit, it should have taken place this year, it's not postponed to 2021, but it's a very big milestone because it's the 2020, it was the milestone. And this is really some point of engagement. Things happen a lot in the formal negotiation, but things happen also in the corridors and all side events and etc. And this is also where we need to be present and organized. If 20 people there tell the same story to different people, it starts to build something coherent and that people repeat. And there is also the World Forestry Congress, it's taking place next year in South Korea. I think when it comes to bioeconomy, a place to gather perhaps private sector actors also about that. And I think we need to make the most when we look at going into new fields or in new places to explain what rubber is and what it means in terms of its significance for the economy and also how to address some of the issues of the sector. We need to make the most of these digital spaces to invest the other places because what is interesting is that when we had the objective to do this workshop, we thought about a face to face workshop. So bringing 30, 50 experts to Singapore and discussing during three days and now we ended up with 250, 300 participants, some of them from the climate change sector, knowing less about rubber, some of them from the private sector or even from the industry, they wouldn't have participated. So perhaps we could also look at these places that are organizing these virtual meetings where we can bring our messages. And yes, lastly, I think there is a lot that we know, there's still a lot that we need to do to complement the knowledge and to go into implementation. And I think presenting an action plan that would based on research and based on on bringing new evidence answer at the same time the issue of climate change adaptation food security and contribution to the bio circular by economy and sustainable production and consumption, bringing more resilience and at the same time, more more more efficient and more climate friendly production and consumption mode. I guess that is that is something appealing and I think there are many emblematic solution in this sector diversification of production diversification of produce that are that are that could be very, very appealing for either for the industry or for some of the innovations supporting funds. Yeah. Thank you very much, Vincent, it's all the panelists are well aligned with the thoughts. In any, I will open the question to the attendees. If you want to ask the question. If you want to ask it please raise the hand or you like to post the questions. Certainly the panelists will address those questions. I think it isn't said quite a lot and the whole communication is very important communication is something that we have to plan carefully and we have to pay attention to the international agenda and be prepared to be there. I think you know this is what what really now we have to do. I think we spend some time. As Vincent said to look at what kind of communication this workshop. I think maybe now we still need to have some other thoughts but is there. And it's really, really, really important because could make a difference and know if the importance of rubber comes from different organizations and I think you know it creates really that force that we need to to bring attention of the international forum. So this is very important. Thank you very much. Yes, it is true that when a collaborative voice is heard and present in any international discussions that is totally different from one to one voices everybody trying to make. So the opportunity of collaboration for taking rubber to a next level of discussion to address how this wonderful sustainable material could play an active role in the social aspect on the economic aspect and the environment aspect of the society as well as the global. That can bring a positive change which the sustainable development goal is trying to envisage and the countries all are engaging and trying to bring these elements through the NDP and NDCs and which with the collaboration of all the international organization present today and collaborated for this event can make a big difference, bringing the natural rubber and the visibility for natural rubber into a next level. I like to thank all the panelists for their wonderful contribution to the today's discussion. At the same time, we like to thank all the participants, all the attendees who joined to the event all over the world. I like to give the floor to both Sabato Ray and Vincent to conclude the session. Thank you very much. Yes, not just from ISG site. I wanted to, first of all, thanks to all the colleagues from C4FTA, CRAD, of course, Dr. Zitz over LDP, without him we could not do this anyway. And I think all the speakers, all the researchers, everyone that has put an effort to give its own contribution during these three days. We had a lot of participants from all over the world, really, from South America to Southeast Asia and I think it was really amazing. It was more than actually we expected. Now it's time to move forward and make some good action. So thanks a lot for everything and also the guys working in the IT and the backstage. Fabio Ricci did a very good, excellent job. I think we have to thank him for his support. So thank you so much to everyone. Thank you, Salvatore. And yes, and warm thanks to Dr. Aziz and IRDB and to IRSV. Salvatore, you, Lakshmi and the team without whom this joint workshop wouldn't absolutely not have been possible. Thanks to CRAD. CRAD is a partner of the CGI research program on forestry and agroforestry together with C4 and others. But thanks to all the presenters, the more than 30 presenters at the time, they interest three days. And yes, thanks to the incredible back office team, I think we are all learning how to do these new seminars, these new webinars. We were deceived that it should be virtual. We were looking at exchange over coffees, over a coffee break, a corridor talks. But I think we managed to have a very productive event, very nice chat. And we look forward to meet next week with the co-organizers to re-discuss on how we make the most of it for the futures as many have called us to do so. So we hope we live up to the task. Thank you so much to everybody. Thank you so much for your organization. Thank you. We'll be now. Thank you very much. Thank you. Enjoy your weekend. Thank you so much.


Thank you very much. And a very warm welcome to all of you here in the room, to those of you following us on the live stream, whether in English or Chinese. And most definitely a warm welcome to my wonderful panel here this afternoon. You're joining this press conference at the 12th annual meeting of the new champions here in Tianjin, China. And when Professor Schwab decided to do a meeting in China 12 years ago, a lot of people, especially in Europe and the US, asked, why are you doing a meeting on technology and science in China? And I think it is fair to say after today and yesterday in the discussion we've seen here that a lot more people will understand why it's a good place to have a meeting on science, innovation, and technology. We want to take a closer look, yes, on science and technology, but also we want to do a little deep dive into the topic of what's the latest in science and research and the use of technology for food, health, and food safety. And I'm particularly happy that we have such a wonderful panel to talk about this subject here today. Let me quickly introduce them to you. We simply go by the seating order. So excuse me if I start with a gentleman to my immediate left. We're joined here by Carlos Moedas, who is the commissioner for research, science, and innovation of the European Commission. And while that is a minor aspect, I might add also co-chair of this annual meeting. To his immediate left, we are joined by Katrin DeBock. She's a professor of exercise and health at the ETH in Zurich, Switzerland, right at the heart. And center of our panel here today, we're joined by Laura Neusturm, who's the professor for food biochemistry, also based in Zurich, Switzerland. That's not a Swiss bias by the forum. It's just that these ladies are excellent and happen to be based in Zurich. Then we're also joined by Eva Angoon, who's the professor at the University College in Dublin. And I've never heard this before, but you're a professor for biosystems and food engineering. So very intrigued to hear from you here today. And last but definitely not least, we're joined by Jean-Pierre Bourguignon here today, who's the president of the European Research Council, also based in Brussels. I'll stop talking now and head over to the commissioner. Commissioner Medes, the floor is yours. What would you say to somebody who's still doubting whether China is a good place to talk about science and technology? I think China is a great place to talk about technology and science. And it's a great opportunity for us Europeans to come here and tell you what we are the best and what are the good things that we do. And if there is something that we are really good at is fundamental science. And the European Research Council represents exactly the best of the best of science in Europe. And when I started, and Jean-Pierre Bourguignon is the president of the European Research Council, I can tell you that for me was really one of the amazing parts of my job was to meet people like Catherine Eiffel Laura to discuss science, because they are the best of the best. And the best of the best have, for me, two characteristics. One is that they're really good at what they do, of course. But the part of that, they are able to tell their stories in a way that engages people. And Europe needs that. And so I'm very proud to be here with the three of you, because you represent what we have really in Europe as the best science and the best research and the engagement with the public. I think that we have taken very seriously betting on fundamental science in Europe. We have a proposal for 100 billion euros for science and innovation for our next cycle of the budget. And that is thanks to people like you, people that have proved to the European taxpayer that investing in science is not only something great for society, but it's our duty. Because if you want to create jobs, if you want growth, you need to invest in science and innovation. So I'm extremely happy to be here, also because the sector that we're talking, which is health and in particularly food, is important for the future of the earth and the sustainability of us all. I think that health is one of these examples that people understand very well, that you can communicate with the people in Europe in a way that they understand what we do. And I think that you are a little bit the ambassadors that we have to talk about this subject matter in a way that people say, look, we're putting as European taxpayers, we're putting our money in the right place. And the right place is to think, how can we really, in terms of food and nutrition, how can we get to a better place? You know, we had these, I would call it, the way of looking at health for 100 years was about you diagnose, you treat, you recover. And the way they look at it is so different. It's about going from the illness to the patient or the illness to the person, the person at the center to go from a world of closed data to a world of open data. And to go from a world that will be not just human only, will be human plus technology led in terms of care, in terms of looking at the future. So, Luke, thank you very much for inviting me to be part of this conference. But you are really the stars of Europe and I'm very happy to be able to share these moments. Thank you, thank you, Commissioner. Now, Katrin, every morning I, when I take the bus to this conference center, I see in every park, basically in Tianjin, I see a group of Chinese citizens practicing Tai Chi or doing some open air exercise. And while I've been studying that, you've been going a little bit deeper on the subject of health and exercise. Maybe you can share with us, what are you working on? What are really the highlights and what's your passion about this topic? So, what my lab actually does and for which I have received a starting grant from ERC is we study how blood vessels interact with the muscle. And the reason why I am so interested in muscle is actually the following now. At this moment, we see really a massive rise in the number of people with non-communicable diseases such as obesity, the metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease and also cancer. And these diseases have one thing in common, they can be prevented by exercise. That's why we exercise. And even though we all know that exercise makes you healthy or keeps you healthy, how exercise does so and the molecular mechanism behind this are very poorly understood. And obviously the muscle is central in this because the muscle contracts, the muscle induces movement and this movement then increases health. Now, even though we do understand a lot on how muscle increases health, particularly the muscle fibers have been very intensely studied. There are many more other cell types in the muscle and my lab is particularly interested in the blood vessels. Why? Because those blood vessels bring the food to the muscle but also deliver waste products out of the muscle and they deliver all health-promoting factors throughout our body, which then in the end impact on the brain or impact on our heart and make us healthy. So in detail, we study how blood vessels grow in the muscle upon exercise because we know that whenever you start to exercise, whenever you move, your blood vessels grow in the muscle and we hypothesize that this growth of blood vessels is really required for the health-promoting effects of exercise. And this we study using a combination of several techniques using mouse models, human samples and we hope to translate these findings to people with disease. So we actually study health and how exercise promotes health to find novel therapeutic targets to help out people with diseases such as obesity, such as the metabolic syndrome, et cetera. Thank you very much. And Laura, that's a wonderful bridge over to your work because you are fighting the same good fight then, Katri. But you are coming from a slightly different angle. So if I understand correctly, you're looking at how our diet can help promote health and I think you're also looking in particular at fiber, the role of fiber. Maybe you can add to what Katri just said and share your thoughts. Yeah, absolutely. So I could more or less use in several cases similar vocabulary and same words as Katri did. So we're also interested in preventing the occurrence of the non-communicable diseases. So in a way, how could we, with our diet and with our food that we eat influence and prevent the rising of the cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes, for example. And this is, so it's again, instead of going from curing illnesses to rather prevent the illness from arising in the first place. And the compound, as mentioned in my lab and what is in the center of our interest are dietary fibers. So fibers that you find in plant-based foods, they can be either insoluble, so hard solid fibers. And my group and also my ERC project is mostly focused on soluble fibers. So they're compounds that can be found in water solutions. They can be solubilized in water and they interact again with all the nutrients in our foods. So they can, for example, slow down the absorption of sugars in our gut. They can prevent and inhibit the reabsorption of cholesterol in our gut. So they modulate the absorption of different nutrients through interactions. And we, in my lab, we're developing methods how to measure these interactions and how to then reflect this to the health benefits of different types of fibers and in a way modifying or being able to measure them and optimize the intake or recommendations for dietary fiber intakes. And again, as Katrin similarly, wanting to work on a molecular level, understanding really deep down in the chemistry of the fibers and the molecules they interact with. Thank you, thank you very much. Eva, China had arguably had some issues with food safety in the past. That's no secret. I understand in your work you focus very much on imaging technology. And maybe you can share how that technology can contribute to a safer and more healthier diet. Sure. So just like to tell you, first of all, that the European Research Council has been fundamental in my setting up my research lab. I got an ERC starting grant a few years ago and that allowed me to set up my own research lab at University College Dublin and also to get together a team of researchers which has grown from just three researchers to now 10. And we all are specialists in hyperspectral imaging. So that's a special type of imaging where we look at objects at hundreds of different wavelengths. And this allows us to get information about the composition of these objects and to understand how they change in different biological systems. And we use hyperspectral imaging at a fundamental level and also through to an applied level. So with the ERC project, we're using hyperspectral imaging to try to understand how medical implants interact with the human body. So we're developing methods to measure the interactions between implants, basically polymers, okay, and water and proteins and cells because we think that these interactions are very important in the future compatibility of medical implants. But another important factor is how bacteria grow on these implants inside the body. So we are looking at new methods to try to understand this with the ERC project. But on a more applied level, we're also working with clinicians to develop screening tools for cancer using hyperspectral imaging. And also we're looking at bacteria that grow on food surfaces and on foods. So we go from the very microscopic even down to nanoparticles where we look at the interactions between nanomaterials and cells, for example, all the way up to the macroscopic level where we look at actual food produce. So we can detect bacteria growing on foods, for example. And we're trying to develop this further so we could in the future have new tools to measure food safety in an automated and fast way. So, yeah. Thank you very much. Jean-Bier, thank you first of all for bringing these fantastic researchers here to China. You've been working with a lot of researchers over the years. And obviously you brought three individuals here who have been very successful in what they do and, you know, cutting, breaking new ground. Let's say on our livestream there's a lot of young students, maybe, researchers themselves from China, from the world, listening. What's your advice to them? Well, I think it's a very good question because actually we need a new generation and you need the young people to be motivated to really do science. And today one can do science in many different ways. Of course, you need to get the training to get the stimulation to study science in depth. But now it's clear that actually there is not only the academic way but there could be also some other ways. And it's very important for me in what has been said to stress really how much the distance in some cases between fundamental research and applied research actually has been shortened. You can even speak about short-sickets in some cases. Some of the cases not. But still they are fundamental science which takes 10 years, 20 years, 30 years to really become really a new world. And the example I always give is quantum mechanics which of course was a curiosity for physicists in the early 19th century. Now it's the basics of every engineer today and nanotechnology and everything we are using at this level is of this kind. So the European Research Council from that point of view is a program of the European Union which really has been putting a lot of emphasis on younger people. So it shows that in particular it has been said by some of the people who spoke today that it really enabled them to develop a group around them. And these are two sides of this. One side of course is the resources which are put in disposal but also the other side is to convince the institution people are working in that really young people should be given confidence and the freedom to develop their activities. This is not so obvious because in some countries or some institutions actually you still want the elder people like me to really control everything and not give the free ride for the younger people. So I think for young people today I think it's very important that they are there to come up with their dreams and people who apply to ERC they know that if they want to have a chance of being successful they have to come up with their craziest idea if you allow me to formulate it this way to really be ambitious if they come with a business as usual they have no chance. So this is the idea that we really are looking for the best possible things for the future and I'm always very pleased actually pleased because we did it when I hear a grantees from the ERC who tell me I submitted a similar project to my national funding agency they refused it because it was too risky and I'm glad to hear that we do fund some risky project of course some will fail but that's the only way we can really get breakthroughs by really people being ambitious looking for great things. Now my final words have to do also with this international dimension I think maybe one comment we could get from the researchers who are here who have already told us about their research but also they already mentioned that they are not alone to do that they are really in teams and I'm sure their teams are very very international so this international dimension shows that on the one hand definitely research is a public science is a public good and therefore it has to be open it has to be accessible everywhere but also it's so important that we organize and we encourage and we facilitate really the brain circulation that is people being exposed to another environment is something which is the best way to grow actually and of course the key point is that there should be a circulation that is they are not in a place where everybody gets concentrated and stays there but I think from this point of view I think U.S.C. is really doing quite an important job presently we have exactly 35 grantees who are Chinese that is people are really based in Europe doing that actually they were already in Europe when they applied to ERC but we have more than 800 young Chinese who are either doctoral students or postdoc finance by ERC and we hope that some of them will consider spending enough time to Europe maybe coming back to China maybe developing things so I think science and ERC is one instrument which the European Commission has developed for that is really an instrument which is totally open to the world and we hope to participate in this circulation brain circulation which is absolutely critical for the future of science but also for the future of humanity altogether Thank you very much and let me ask our three professors here on a range from I feel like I'm talking to a three year old to the people here at the event actually are understanding the importance of basic research because let's face this this is not a science conference and you're curious and you're excluded because you crossed over from the academic world into public service but a lot of your fellow participants here are not the day-to-day business is not science do you feel they understand the importance of the work you do and the question goes to all of you I think so I think most of the people if not all the people here present show massive interest into basic science I think we meanwhile realize that there is a bridge between science and technology and that we need each other I mean if we want to stay relevant on the long term then we need to find ways to also connect with people who bring our discoveries to the public to the patients in my case so there is a really nice atmosphere from that point of view here in the conference You see it the same way It's one of the main reasons I came to this conference because I usually go to very specialized scientific conference so it's amazing to have the opportunity to talk about your science to people from completely different areas and what I found is people are very open and curious even if they don't necessarily understand what you're talking about they want to learn so it's a great opportunity for that So do you want to add to that? I mean I would fully agree with that I would say that people are at very different levels of how much they understand of the science that we do everybody appreciates and appreciates the importance of that but on the other hand it also tells me that for us it's very important to disseminate our research and disseminate the results that we get and also be able to tell the stories and the findings in different levels that everybody can understand also the importance of that Thank you very much Selfishly again I've asked all the questions so far let's open up the floor for questions and answers we have a microphone here if I could see a show of hands who would like to ask a question don't be shy well while you collect your courage maybe I can get another question to you commissioner you've been you're returning to the EMNC it's even your second time as a co-chair so listening to your fellow panellists it seems like you've been quite successful in putting science, innovation and tech on the agenda of the meeting where do you see the science and innovation dialogue between China and Europe developing in the coming years since I've started this job I was very fortunate to really have a fantastic dialogue with my counterparts here in China the minister of science and we created a co-fund basically a mechanism where we put around 100 million euros from the EU side and the Chinese side puts around 30 million euros and we have had more than 300 now participations and more than 100 projects where you have the Chinese researchers with the European researchers working together and the Chinese part funds their side we fund our side but we work together and I think that's very unique because I don't have a lot of those mechanisms in other parts of the world and so I've been here also to congratulate the Chinese government for their openness in creating in such a short span of time a mechanism that works very well so that's one of the ways the second one is with the ERC and all the principal investigators and the researchers that work in teams of the ERC grantees which Jean-Pierre just told us about it and I think that we have a fantastic opportunity I mean I think that if you look at innovation in basically some dimensions that you could say science and engineering in one side and the other side customers and efficiency I would say that Europeans have a long tradition of science and engineering and the Chinese today are leaders in terms of innovating towards the customer because you can with your scale immediately touch millions of people and also in terms of efficiency so if you put these four angles of innovation together you see that our relationship is a win-win it's really a win-win game where we can really make a difference because we can always win in both of these four dimensions so I'm very happy to be here and I'm very happy that our collaboration is getting better by the day and so we're working for the future and so in the next program we will renew I hope our collaboration with all of your Chinese students, PhDs researchers with our European counterparts Thank you Commissioner I understand we have a question from the lady in the back if you could identify your organization and tell us your name please Hi, I'm from Caixin Media from China and I have a I think it's a simple question how to motivate our scientists and researchers, especially the young generation to do such fundamental research because sometimes these kind of projects are hard to used into the clinical or practical field or hard to attract investment how to motivate them Thank you very much I just, I will just kick it off and think that I think that people love science if you explain science to people if you tell them the story they get very excited about it when I go to schools to see young people very very young people in a primary school and you come with a video of science and it's told in a way that they understand they just get very excited but probably don't do enough of that but so I can basically testify on this I am convinced that being a scientist is the best job there is in the world I can discover new things every day I'm very passionate about it for me it's also not that difficult to try and spread my passion about it on a daily basis I think there is still much to discover at the basis of changes of discovering things that change the world so I think it's a very nice profession to do I can also completely agree I think all scientists are very passionate about their work and I think with all the ups and downs that we get during our work it needs a certain passion because otherwise you would just give up I think what comes to translating the findings of fundamental science to practice it's a big hurdle and I think we scientists are often happy when we just discover something and we are able to find an answer to the question whether it's just out of academic interest or not and of course that's not sufficient we also need to bring it to practice and I think it is increasing the amount how much we interact with the industry and what there is between companies and universities but it's still not sufficient I think there has to be more active connections, networking being able to explore outside your own field and everything so it's kind of easy and comfortable just to stay within your enthusiastic researcher zone but I think we also have to actively push ourselves out and then in a way drag along the other others to the same direction I would strongly agree we are funded by the public so we have a strong duty to engage with them and try to explain what we are doing and to inspire the next generation I could share one really interesting engagement activity that a postdoctoral researcher in my group is currently working on her name is Anna Herrero and she is also an artist as well as being a high-perspectral imager and what we produce of course every day are lots of images so she's put together an initiative where she's going to print out large pictures of our images of research and bring them to a public park and she's going to bring a group of children to do art based on the images that we produce in the lab and then they can find out more information about the scientists and the images so I think the public engagement is really important there thank you mindful of the time if there is no further question at this moment I will close this press conference but not without thanking my panel for these wonderful insights into both your work but also your thinking around the importance of science in society thank you very much for being here today with us in the room and thank you all for watching thank you very much