So, welcome everyone. Okay, I think we can start. We are already waiting for three minutes in order to have more people joining. We have already 40. I think we will have for sure more joining in the coming minutes. So, welcome to this open air provide community call. So, this is a community call, an online meeting targeting all the open air content providers from repository managers, managers, editors. So, those that are part of our infrastructure contributing with content. So, we have decided last year to start organizing these community calls in order to have you on board to provide us feedback. About the services that we are offering via the open air infrastructures and also to have your contributions to the development of the services, of the guidelines, of the different areas that we are all working in open air and all the community benefiting. So, the idea of these communities to have it all first Wednesdays of the month is to mainly to share the just asking also for you to mute your microphones and that could you also monitor that. So, the main idea is to provide updates so to let you know about the the main developments that we are doing in open air some novelties, and we all we always have one main topic to discuss. And this, this time will be on the on the on the disk space crease implementation for open air. But every meeting we have one main topic plus all the recent novelties and the recent news about our development so I first I start and Pedro Prince from the from open air from the University of Mino. And we are responsible for the provide service and we, we are in charge of this community call with the rest of, of the open air, the open air team. So, and I will do this first part to tell you about some good news that we have for you about the provide service, and then the main topic will be about the space crease, and we will have our colleague Andreas from the University of Bielefeld and Andreia Bolini from for science that will present the implementation of the crease guidelines in the in this in this space crease. So what, what do we have to tell you this this meeting usually we have recording this meetings you can you can check later and we are going to share also the slides. So, as we told you in last in the last meeting we are doing a kind of redesign of the dashboard of the provide service and the good news are that we are, we are almost done. We are already in a version in in in providing beta in beta to share with you, but the next Tuesday on the coming week on Tuesday, on the 7th of April, we will put it in production. We want to have some time, kind of two weeks to test with some users, but we have this ready to go to production and we are quite happy. It was something that we really wanted to have we receive several contributions in feedback from from users and and and we have redesigned it also to align with them with a new image and new branding in an open air but also to correspond to the some of the feedback that we have received, but we are happy to also to engage with some of you to contribute to this two weeks of revision of this new new version. So, we are really happy and within this release, we will finally have the validator for for for Chris systems, something that we are promising since mid last year. And finally, we have it, we are testing it in better but we will present it. It's the first version, we can say it's more or less a better version of this validator but we will have it also within the release of this production of this in production of this new version so next April 7. So, for this, for this redesign was quite important all the feedback that we have received from from you from different initiatives so some workshops that we have organized at the national and international level even if last year in the during the open conference or in some national events that we have we have done and we have received some feedback and based on that feedback we are producing now some some enhancements in this in this service. But we want, we want more so we want to have your contribution. We are quite happy with this version that we are going to release the coming week. But we want to have your feedback so between the 15 of April and the end of April, we will run a series of of user tests with our provide user board. So, if we, you are available to contribute we have already an interesting team of repository managers or other managers to contribute to this user board but if you want to contribute and we are here also to invite you please send an email directly to me offering your help to participate in this in this test that we are going to run, collect your feedback, we are going to ask you to perform some, some specific actions using our new version of the dashboard and then we will collect your feedback and this will be quite important for the improvements that we need to do within this process. We wanted to do of course in a better stage, but we are pushing to have within production because we, we have three or four main issues regarding the communication with with with providers that we want to put in production. As soon as possible so this is why we are moving fast from better to production, but we are using this April this month this first days of in production to test some things and to quickly free fix it if needed. So we need your help here please contact me. I'm giving this speech just to convince you to contribute to this to this task is not a difficult task we will ask you for a meeting of an hour meeting to run some some some some tests and then often in an hour also to contribute within us with a survey to answer a survey and then with some tasks additional tasks so it's not a lot of effort but but it's it's quite important for us. So we will have this new version. On the coming week, when we are happy for that I just want to tear that the more or less the new layout that we are going to release we will have a completely new brand in the service, the homepage we are providing more information we also have an about page for those that are not part of the service to better what we are offering but but the most relevant change I think it's the internal parts of when you log in to the to the dashboard where we are we have we have where we are now offering really a dashboard view so that we can you can manage and you can play with the data that we are offering so we are quite happy if you want to test it so we it's not everything done yet but you you can access the better instance that we that we have so you can access access and you can already play a bit if you want but it's not 100% what we are going to have in production, but you can already test it tomorrow we will improve a bit this better version so you can you can wait until tomorrow if you want, but please access. And you can you can see that we so we are trying to to have a more friendly interaction more easy to use dashboard and where you have some generic functionalities regarding the registration the validation and the notifications and then we are providing all the specific information for each data source that you have registered in your in your account so this case I am I'm just sharing that I have a screenshot from University of Minio dashboard where we have some some numbers and then you can navigate through the aggregation history all the metadata enrichments and the user statistics. So we are quite happy and I hope that you you will benefit a lot from this new version and I hope that some of you can also contribute to this new version and the tests that we want to run. Now I will stop my my my presentation I will come at the end so I will give the floor to my colleague Andreas from University of Miller felt that will introduce this main topic. Stop sharing because I think Andreas, it's going to share the screen so I give the floor to Andreas, and then he can introduce himself and then the variable in the also and then introduce this this main topic that we are discussing today. At the end, we have time for questions for your comments about of course this presentation that we are going to have, but also about other issues that you are facing with the way we provide so we have some time to answer also about this this topic and and other things from our services for content providers. So there is thank you very much for preparing this this this main topic of the call today. Thank you Pedro and thank you for introduction to this community call today. And it's nice to see the new dashboard so I think there's also some upcoming community calls on this dashboard or so so. Thank you. And I welcome you to also to the fifth community call today from my side. I will have this presentation together with Andrea bullini from for science. And he is certainly in the community. And Andreas the chief technology and innovation officer at for science in Italy. And he's also the deputy leader of the Zerife task force of euro Chris, and a member of core next generation working group, and long long term, the space cometer. So, Andrea, we are happy to welcome you here in this community call today, especially in these times that Peter mentioned in the beginning. My name is address journey and I'm from University of Bielefeld in Germany. And we are responsible for the guidelines in open air, especially in these tasks and this topic here today for the Chris guidelines and in the last year. We have development on the implementation to compliant with the open air Chris guidelines. So, our agenda for this main topic is short introduction about the guidelines. Then I will take over to Andrea. And for the Chris the reef integrated Chris a reef overview implementation of the guidelines in these ways Chris. In this phase of implementation in the last year we have some pilots that we present here. And at the end, some conclusions lessons learns and space for question and answers at the end. So, the open air guidelines for Chris managers have long term evolution. It starts with a version one in June 2015, and we have us to an order X XML, the reef standards. And in end of 2018, we release the actual version of the Chris open air guidelines. This has some minor extensions from the version that's released in the mid of 2018. And the most important thing is to have more personal identifiers and the documentation is improved on this. So, why we choose here the space Chris, what are these days and the space Chris module. And as you know, this base is the most popular repository platform in the world, and is used in many kinds of things we have more than 1,500 installations around the world. And that in the space community, especially a module for the space Chris for current research information systems that specifies these topic, especially and extend these open source software. And this is why we choose why we would like to push these community to have the open air guidelines as a standard out of the box in the space Chris. So, the main objectives for the implementation in the last year was to realize these new guidelines for Chris managers, as I said in the box. This gives the Chris repository managers opportunity to expose their information to open air and to use all services behind open air for your repository. So, I will take over to and give the floor to Andrea to introduce or give an overview about the Chris very format. We will start with a very quick introduction to the new series format for the Chris guideline. The most important fact is then for the new version of the guideline, we have introduced a new service XML format that open to cover additional entities compared to the version one of the guideline. And the entities that are now covered are publication, patents, products, organization unit, people, projects, events and equipment. So you can see that using the Chris guideline, you have a much more rich graph of data information that you can exchange with open air. It's not only limited to research outputs of publication and research data, but you can also describe your organization, person and activities. The other important fact is then the new format reuse existing vocabulary from other community, most important from the core communities or the core vocabulary. Using the Chris guideline, the institution will be able to exchange the as much rich data as possible and one of the important thing is then we want to keep easy to use of this information. So an improvement compared to previous version is that now each record is self-contained. This means that when you expose your publication record in the new series format, all the information about linked entity like author, project, equipment are embedded in the XML of the publication. This will reduce the need to go over different and point to ask multiple requests to build the set of the tail of the record that you really need. How we have done this implementation in the space Chris. So one of the first tasks was to improve the out of box configuration for the space Chris. This space Chris has flexible data model. So you are not buying to a specific data model to specific entities or attribute. But you can decide to collect information that you really need and that you are able to provide in the system. But out of box we provide a starting point or configuration that will match the usual needs of institution. So the first task was to improve this out of box configuration to include all the data that was recommended by open age to to have a good exchange with open age. The second task was to extend to IPMH server of the space Chris to include other than publication also to Chris object. So now with this version you are able to index into IPMH server and so to expose to open age also your project person organization and so on. Again has to in this space Chris in a Chris system to information space is very rich and you have many connected object is more about a graph of object than a single record. We have extended IPMH mechanism so that we can embed information from linked object inside each specific record. Of course we have provided a default mapping so that the information that are stored in this space Chris are exposed in a compatible way to open age and all this effort has been implemented in all the current version of this space Chris. So this is included out of box in the space Chris five that is the most used version the space Chris six, but also into ongoing development of the space Chris seven. So this development are available in all the present version of the space Chris hotel IPMH look like in the space Chris now. So, in green in this diagram you see the common element that we share with the basic space software. So this space deal with community and collection that are usually user to create or I set and have item that describe usually research output so publication or search data and patterns. In this best case we also have what we call research profiles that are person, the organization units, the projects, and some dynamic object that can be used to represent events, journals, equipments and so on. All this information now are indexed into IPMH server. And for each of these empty you get at least one eye document that technically is stored into x y format. In this document you have all the metadata and also information about the beast stream that are attached to the record. Some important fact is that this space Chris also provide the hierarchical metadata. And these are used in this space Chris to manage the terminal relations problem. This is the case when you have one publication for instance and you want to describe to collect also the information about which affiliation was used by each author to sign the specific publication. So in this case we talk about ternary relations, because of course you have the publication you have the person and you have the organization unit that are all connected together. Other than these embedded information is a special eye document also includes dynamically generated content. More specifically we use this infrastructure to dynamically detect, which is the serif type of the space Chris entity that we are going to index, so that we know that the research profiles in this space Chris are used to represent a person in the space Chris world. But also we know that the dynamic object journals is instead a different kind of publication for for a series. Other than that we provide a set of configuration files for this space Chris that allow you to map specific aspect of the open air guideline. There are some solar query that are used to create virtual set, virtual ipmh set because the guideline mandate for set for each entity so the open air guideline for Chris manager required to existence of person set where all the person record are exposed and organization set where all the organization unit record are exposed and so on. Other than that we have a mix of sheet file that translate internal metadata structure of the space Chris to open air serif format so the serif XMR presentation for open air. This endpoint is available out of boxing on the space Chris now when you saw one of the latest version. And you have a specific context into why the game age server that is named open air Chris by default where this guideline are implemented. So let's go to explore some example to make this thing more clear. We have an official demo for this place please available and on this demo you will found on active to the open air Chris gay lining point. So the first example come from the guy line itself so is a publication record. It's a publication record from the open air project. As you can see there are several author and there is a reference to a project again so to the open air project. So in this case we have a less one publication link it to one project and this publication is linked to several books. Of course this person are linked also to organization units so their employment and the project has received some funding. So here you can see that you can access the representation for each entity in the graph starting to look into the publication record. So, here you have the record in the format for the publication, where you see a lot of detail about the publication like the title publication date, the volume issue and other specific of the publication. I am highlighted to section one is related to the authors and one that is related to the originated from our element. So the authors element include a sub element for each author in the publication. In this case you will see the detail about the Nicos houses that include some interesting information. This one you have all the known identifier of this author. So you have the orchid ID, you have the researcher ID, the Scopus author ID directory in the external that described publication. These allow you to have much more accurate exchange of information. But also you see that this level of embedding is not limited to just one level. Inside the publication you have the author, the author type include information about the person, but also the person information include element about other entity in this case for instance the affiliation. So, here you see that this person was affiliated with the National Hellenic Research Foundation, and you see the information about the organization unit that is linked, but also information about specific affiliation records such as the start date and eventually an end date and so on. The other tag that I have highlighted in the publication record was the originated from. It's because the publication have a reference to the project. So here in this tag you see all the detail, the most relevant detail about the project. So you have the title of the project, second generation open access infrastructure. You have the information about the team that work in this project. In this case, it was just a fake person from our demo, but you also see that embedded are funding information. So in the OICER funded element, you find information about the funders, so the European Commission in this case, where there are more detail in the embedded organization unit element, but there are also more detail about the funding itself. So you have the detail about the received amount, the type of funding received and this is also structured in a hierarchy so that the funding can include and be part of other funder funding that in the case of the European Commission is the seven framework program. So this is the Nicos record in this space crease that you also have already seen in embedded in the publication OIC record. So in the public page of this space crease we have a profile where you see that there is the full name, hierarchy, or key, the scope, there is the information about the affiliation. And of course there is also the back reference to the publication that was altered by Nicos. Again, also the person record is exposed as a separate OIP image record. So you can get the detail about the specific person also directly and not only look into the embedded information in the publication. And as you see here, the person record contain again the detail about the person, so like the family name, the first name, the full name, all the identifier, orchid, research, ID, scope, and so on, but also embed information about the affiliation and the organization unit. And the organization unit itself also have a separate record on OIP image endpoint. This also allow external service to collect information that they really need from your crease system. So if an investor is only interested about your researcher, they can just grab the researcher information, the researcher records from your system without care about publication and other entity. The second example in the demo is about a dataset. So what is named a product in the service world. And this product reference a project. So this dataset was collected for a project and was produced by some specific equipment. As you can see here, you have the endpoint access to your OIP image record for each of these entity. We can see the detail about the dataset. So again, the dataset in the service world is named a product. So you have a representation of this record as a nice service product where you have type of product using to call vocabulary, you have the title, the name, identifier. And you have the reference from this product to the project that is embedded again in the product record. And also you have the reference to the equipment. So here you find the generated by elements that embed the equipment information that are also available as a specific OIP image record and dependent OIP image record. In the case of the equipment, for instance, there is also a reference to the owner of the equipment. So the organization that owns the equipment. We have made this implementation thanks to the collaboration with three pilot institutes, institution in Europe. One was the Technic University of Hamburg, Cambridge University of Technology that don't yet run the system in production because we are solving some final issue with local customization. The other two institutes was the Cyprus University of Technology that have already deployed the solution production. So this is a public endpoint that you can explore where you can access all the information about the Cyprus University of Technology. And the same apply for the University of Trieste that have installed the solution in their own open repository. It's named OpenStar. And the nice fact about the University of Trieste is then this endpoint is already used by another project, Italian regional portal, UNTF IG that also is built with this base Chris and aggregate data from three different university in this Italian region. This portal used OIP image server to collect information about to aggregate information about the University of Trieste with the other university. So other than expose this information for this additional project, we have also implemented an investor client that is able to grab the content. We have some slide from the Eurocris meeting in Newster last November of last year that was the result of the pilot phase. The interesting thing about this slide is what we and each institution learn during the pilot. So in the case of the Hamburg University of Technology, we improve a lot the initial solution because looking to tell very complex data with a lot of local enhancement to the model and customization. We found some discrepancy at starting the data that was exposed to the OIP image and data that was really stored in the Chris system. And these analysis help us to improve the solution and all these peaks are now included in the current version. The Cyprus University of Technology has adapted this solution with the aims to expose their complete set of information to open air. As you can read, University of Technology of Cyprus have a lot of projects funded by the European Commission and the other. So the benefit for them is to be able to expose this information to open air and they really look forward to see this information available to open air portal. I have already said something about the University of Trieste. So the University of Trieste is one of the most hold the space installation and the space Chris installation data signs more than 10 year. And one of the goals to benefit that for them to use to this implementation is that they are now able to expose all the information. So not only publication, but also the research profile, the organization, the project events, the dataset to open air, but not so only to open air. As I really said, an Italian regional project also used the same endpoint to collect this information and to create a regional portal for the research. So my last slide is about the other connection that exists between the space Chris and open air. This is only the last implementation that we have provided to improve the integration between the space Chris open air. Other than Chris Gail line, the space Chris also support the literature repository Gail line, the version three as a normal space repository. But the good news is that we have also implemented the compliance with version four for literature repository. And this is currently available as a page for the space and the space Chris, and that we have proposed to integrate into the next minor version of the space. We don't know yet if they will be included or not into this basic space versions or in the space five dot 11 or six dot four. But for sure, this will be included in the in the next space Chris version. So after the release of the space five 11 and six dot four, the space Chris version will include the support for literature repository version four. This space Chris also implemented that archive guideline version two, that mean expose your record your data set in using the data side schema version four. And using this space Chris you are able to use the open air project database as an authority during the submission process so that the researcher don't need to input manually the title of the project or the grand number, but they can just look up in the open air project database. And also out of box you get open air statistics plugin already bundled with the space Chris software so the only thing that you need to do is to apply for an APK with open air and add your APK to the space Chris configuration file. All these aspects are documented a bit on the latest wiki on the official this space wiki. But of course the presentation is always something that can and should be improved. Andreas, if you are still able to help me, I leave you the floor for the conclusion. So, thank you Andrea, and for this also implementation in this space Chris here. Oh, I can see Pedro slides at the moment. Can I share my screen. Pedro. I know that you have two more years. So, this was also implementation. And now feature rich things in the space Chris at the moment so this is a very good start to set up the space Chris in your, your institutions and my last words to the implementation of for science that we have seen is that for science have won the tender in the last year. To implement these guidelines for into the space Chris. So, the next question is, you have these best Chris up and running and how can you register register your Chris system in our mayor. At the moment in the production system and also in better. You will see Chris systems registration was stay tuned. So, at the moment, please. There's another work around for this so we are work hard to get the registration up and running. But there are some implications there and so in the at the moment if you would like to become a member. I sent an email to help desk at University of Bielefeld. You see the email address here. And the requirements what we need from your side is the name of the system. Your base URL to the endpoint. And eventually the sets that we can harvest from you so Andrea said there are a lot of sets like publications, patents, organizations, funding, and so on equipment. And if you like only that we that don't may have us the publication sets and the patent so please tell us in the mail also. So, but we are in the face to see these registration with and we are strengthen strongly in collaboration with Euro Chris. Euro Chris has set up in the last year. registration for research information system called dress. And here is a short screenshot from the Euro Chris website and shows up the act at the moment. Yesterday. When I take the shots. You see a lot of Chris systems around the world. So you see here, a lot of Chris systems in Europe, you will, you see a lot of Chris systems in India. And I think it's was going up the next coming upcoming month. And we are going to find a way with together with your Chris to register a Chris system in open air. So, this was a tender and there are some lessons learned and conclusions on this. And we have seen over the time in the last year that we have some limitations in the guidelines. And we refine the guidelines at the moment. It's since it's now good to have these these space Chris implementation in the space. So you can exchange your research information directly with open air. And you can also use the services in open air for your publications and other kind of records from your space Chris system. To get notified from broker about enrichments of your metadata are and so on so in the community call in February I think we have dedicated presentation about the broker. So these discusses really available. And then you'll be see license is open source is implemented as Andrea said, and if you have feedback for us about the guidelines of Chris managers, especially we have a Google document without any authorizations you can comment this Google document and explain your issues that you have with the guidelines. At the moment there are some issues there, please you can also take a look on this and you see what we are working on at the moment. You can also send an email at guidelines at open air you for feedback and also for we have the issue tracker in GitHub for these guidelines. And we collect the information from the Google document and work with the issue tracker in GitHub. The feedback channel for these base Chris is also in GitHub. And is under for science these base and issues. My Yeah, one moment I will, I will finish. Okay, I will try to apply to some question that I read on the chat, but I gave my sorry for the technical issue but I'm not able to are from your side so it's a bit hard to do that. I read a question about identifier for organization unit is something that can be done in itself but is not not available in the current guideline as actual example so if you look to the GitHub repository for issue that was referenced before, you will find a couple of issue discussing how to express exactly express dis identifier for organization unit. I will put one link in the chat that is this issue describe some of the identifier that we are looking for for organization unit that of course include Roar, Greed, Izny and other common identifier. So you can expect to have this solved in a next version, probably minor version of the guideline. Thank you. Guys I don't know if you want to conclude something more about the feedback so if you want to jump in just I'm sharing the screen but but you can you can just so we are already in this community call with Andreas do you want to add something else to finalize your presentation this final remarks about how can people contribute to provide feedback or not. I'd like to thank you all and if you have any questions you can also send an email to may help desk at University of Bielefeld and as Peter mentioned in the beginning. So, the Chris validator I think there's a. This is not discussed yet. This very narrow, this will be exceeded the time limit of this call we have one hour at the moment, and especially I think there's another dedicated call on the validation validation service and validator in the provide community call. And this cannot only focus on Chris system this can also also focus on literature guidelines and so. So thank you very much. And Pedro, your floor. So, so I think this is important. So we have a clear roadmap here for the integration of three systems in open air so pre systems are also an important community from from our open air community of content providers so we are already working in a clear roadmap with all the repository managers from richer to maybe from rich to repositories but now we can also do this in a clear we having a clear roadmap and clear tools to support also Chris system managers, having this use cases presented here, and having all these channels of communication and plus also the validator available in the in provide on the coming week. And so, thank you for joining this call. I just want to highlight to finalize that so every month we have this committee calls next committee call will be on the 6th of May, at the same time of past two. European time. And I also want to invite you to if you are not yet a subscriber, please subscribe the content provider newsletter so we are sending every month also on the day before of the community call. If you are already a subscriber please disseminated through your networks at the national level this quite important also to, to have other people in your country's also to subscribe the newsletter and to participate in the community call so if you don't have any other questions, thanks for joining this community call I hope that it was useful at least just to know about some novelties important novelties a new layout a new version of the dashboard next, next week, and about this important use case from this place Chris to have more systems on board in open air so many things all and stay strong in this difficult phase for all, and then be safe. Okay, bye bye. Thank you very much.


If we could just get you, ladies and gentlemen, if any of you have got spaces in your seating, can I ask you to move in, please? We need to get everybody seated quickly to get the official programme under way. As soon as we have everybody seated and we're in business. Well, thank you, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to this special event. The Chancellor of the University, Scott St John, will be presiding, and so as Vice-Chancellor, all I need to do is ask if you would please join me in welcoming the President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins. Te Rangi koe, te ihi te wehi te tapu koe, te mātāpunonga mea tapu kato i te aau i tapo, ka pikau tanu nei i wanatini manakitanga i tukoe i whora e iekirungi i tena i tena i tena o tātau. Ka tangi ake rā, ki ngā mate kei runga i a koutau, ki ngā mate kei runga i a mātau. Ngā mate kato ae fai wahi nei ki tene huirangatira o tātau, tene ka tangi ake kia koutau, te honga ora, e papi nei ia tātau, te wairua hihiko, tena tātau. Haramai rā e te aho tūarangi, haramai rā e te prihitini, haramai rā e ngā manuhiri, haramai, haramai, haramai whakatau mai, haramai rā kirarui te atarau o ngā moungo o Tāmaki e tūwhaka hihi nei, hae te upoko o te kawana tanga o te whenua motu hake te ripaporika o Airani, haramai, haramai, haramai rā, ko ruatahi ko to hoarangatira e te fai e te maereikora, haramai, e te minister o ngā take ture, haramai, haramai, tako tō ope ko haramai nei, ki e nei motu e horoni, haramai, haramai whakatau nei. Tē nei ko te wharewananga o Tāmaki Makaurau e tūwhaka iitini runga o ngā papataka hango o Ngāti Whātua e whakatau nei, e mihi nei, e krangani ka koutou, haramai, haramai, whakatau mai. Whakatau mai rā i runga te hitoria i wāinga i ngā fenua e rua nei, Newtirini, Aotearoa, te fenua o Airani, te mano mano hunga o te rā fenu i haere mai ki te nohokirongi e nei fenua, tē nei ka whakamahara kaita rā nei. O tātau kara e rua nei, e tū nei, te rā o Newtirini, te rā o te ripaparaka o Airani, tē nei ka mihi. Nere re haramai, haramai whakatau nei. E papiana rā te honore, te koata ki tē nei koutou, nere tē nei koutou, tē nei koutou, tē nei koutou katoa. Yr sel sealed mister presiden, yr sel sealed misters Higgins, minister Flanagan in your delegation, the university welcomes you on behalf o te mano fenua, te roi uch haes customary dominion ovitamikimakura, the city of Auckland, Ngāti-Fātua. We welcome you to the city, with the largest Pacific population in the world. We welcome you to New Zealand's most diverse city, and we welcome you to New Zealand's largest and most diverse university. We welcome you on the spirit of the shared history between our two great nations. The Republic of Ireland has deep roots in the historical garden of Aotearoa, New Zealand, and we celebrate those today. We welcome you remembering the interactions between the Māori people and Irish settlers in New Zealand's colonial history. Some of those interactions blossomed into unions and marriages. Some of them evolved into less formal unions, but in spite of that, many thousands of Māori, many generations later, are proud to claim Irish heritage. When we think of such characters present in the time of our colonial history, names such as that of Hake Maaman, Jack Maaman, Cannibal Jack, the tattooed Irishman who was befriended by the Ngāpuhi people come to mind, Judge Frederick Manning of the Hokianga who married a northern Māori woman, and Father James McDonald, the famous Catholic missionary who converted many Māori in the early 1800s to the Catholic faith. Many of us are proud to be of both Māori and Irish heritage. I am one, and as the saying goes among my family, one side is very fond of a little tipple, the other side doesn't know when to stop. For the last 30 years, Māori and Irish linguists and scholars have collaborated to share strategies for the resurrection and renaissance of our two indigenous languages. When President Emman de Valera visited here in 1948, he attracted crowds of thousands of interested New Zealanders of Irish descent. When Mary Robinson visited, she planted a tree in commemoration of Kate Shepard in 1993 in the year of New Zealand suffrage, and when Patrick Hillary visited in the 1980s, he paid a visit to the late Māori Queen Te Atairangikahu at her palace at Turangawaewae Marae. With our fondness for culture, music, sport, the very high value we place on diversity and equality, it is no wonder that when New Zealanders think to Ireland, they think of her as a friend and as a relative. They think of her with much affection and with much joy. Therefore, our dear friends, your excellencies, President Higgins, Mrs Higgins, Minister Flanagan, may you experience much joy while you are here in Aotearoa, New Zealand, and we welcome you with warm and loving hearts. Your Excellency, President Higgins, in your lifetime you have received many awards, the Order of the Clans of Ireland being one. Our cheeky Australian relatives took the opportunity to bestow on you an honorary doctorate in Perth. Following your address to us, Mr Jim Peters, the Pro Vice-Chancellor Māori, will present to you the Taunga Paonangu, the symbolically carved greenstone pendants which will link you to this earth we hope for eternity, symbolic of the Ituna relationship which our two nations enjoy. May you and your delegation experience much peace, grace and joy in a country that knows you. You've come here to forge stronger diplomatic relationships between our two countries, so in that spirit we welcome you warmly. Noreireta Rangatira hāramai, e te Māreikura hāramai, e te minister hāramai, e ngā Rangatira hāramai tahi, me te tō tātou Rangatira hāramai tā whakatau mai, e te Matua, e Stuart, e te Tumuaki, e te Matua, e Jim hūri tō tātou whare, Irish Cousins Ma, tēnā tātou, tēnā tātou, kia hāramai tātou katoa. To New Zealand, the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, and his wife, Sabina Higgins. There are an estimated 13,000 Irish citizens living in New Zealand, and it is wonderful to see so many of you here today, joining our students, staff and supporters on this important occasion. It is most appropriate that we are today gathered on the University campus. As a former lecturer in political science and sociology at the National University of Ireland, Galway, and in the United States, President Higgins has displayed a lifelong commitment to the support of education and the arts. Michael D. Higgins is also a writer and a poet, contributing to many books covering diverse aspects of Irish politics, sociology, history and culture. He has published two collections of essays, Causes for Concern Irish Politics, Culture and Society, and Renewing the Republic. He has also published four collections of poetry, The Betrayal, The Season of Fire, and New and Selected Poems. A passionate political voice and statesman, human rights advocate, promoter of inclusive citizenship and champion of creativity within Irish society, Michael D. Higgins has previously served at many levels of public life in Ireland, including as Ireland's First Minister of Arts, Culture and the Gueltocht. I've been working on that, and Mrs Higgins, thank you for your assistance with that matter. Throughout his life, Michael D. Higgins has campaigned for human rights and for the promotion of peace and democracy in Ireland and in many other parts of the world, from Nicaragua to Chile to Cambodia, Iraq and Somalia. In 1992, he was the first recipient of the Sean McBride Peace Prize from the International Peace Bureau in Helsinki in recognition of his work for peace and justice in many parts of the world. And on 11 November 2011, he was inaugurated as the 9th President of Ireland. We're honoured today to have President Higgins visiting the University of Auckland and delivering an address to our students, staff, supporters and members of the wider public. Having read a number of your speeches, as I mentioned a little earlier, I'm thrilled to hear that today you'll be addressing the topic Ireland and New Zealand. Some origins and prospects of two nations who share so many experiences and interests, which is so true. Ladies and gentlemen, please join with me in welcoming the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, to deliver his address. Mae hans Centrel er leis hans Centrel er gwella chagumorarum ond mei dygurtu, aguson chiangawala luatu, idon mwintana herin, is mwintan nua helin, is gwemgagra agus panakta da winter, idson ato imis, idson ato le giecti, is berbanat. Mae, I say, Vice Chancellor, thank you for your kind introduction this evening, and I just have said in my own language, I represent it for a great number of years the largest number of those who spoke the Irish language as their first language in Gówe West, God you hear, and in the Arn islands. And indeed I do recall very clearly what my predecessor, Emma de Valera, said when he came here, and today I have to tell you our work continues in promoting the use of the Irish language, which is used in the home of the President almost every day. I do thank you for the warmth and depth of the invitation and welcome to the land of which your people were the first settlers and which the people, the first arrivals, the people, they are land both in terms of the spiritual significance of it, and both in terms also of the way in which you are negotiating the present and the future in full consciousness of the rich traditions that New Zealand has the great advantage of sharing. It is an honour to address this August institution and to see so many in university students and staff, and particularly to university which has contributed so much and is continuing to contribute so much to the social culture and intellectual life of New Zealand. And by the way, before I say anything else, my publisher would want to say my last book last year when ideas matter, is in your bookshops. As a former university teacher, I did indeed teach sociology and political science. It is a very great pleasure at any time to return to university. Universities are enormously important as communities of ideas and communities of scholarship, and it's a very particular pleasure to have been asked to address a university from which one of the great literary movements of New Zealand emerged. It had as its image an image that many literary revivals and renaissance movements shared. Indeed, it's an image that sits on top of a monument outside the gate of Aura Sinuk on the home of the president of Ireland. I refer to the publication of that short-lived but seminal literary journal, Phoenix, in whose pages were first published the words of Alan Cornyn, Rex Fairburn, Ronald Mason and Charles Brash, among others, and they used words that were both ambitious and inclusive and words that must surely ring from the difficult 1930s through to the decades of today. They wrote as manifesto for their journal, we are hungry for the words that shall allow us these islands and ourselves, that will show us and that shall give us a home in thought, a home in thought. I recall reflecting on these powerful words, their demand as they are for a public culture and a space for culture as I prepared for my very first visit to New Zealand in 1999. We are hungry for the words that shall show us these islands and ourselves, that shall give us a home in thought. They were very relevant then because as a former Minister for Arts, Culture and the Geltog in Ireland and President of the Council of Culture Ministers of the European Union in 1996, during the Irish Presidency of the European Union, I had been very engaged in matters of cultural policy and I had been invited to address a symposium organised by the Broadcasting Commission and the Institute of Public Policy Studies in Wellington to speak on the importance of creativity, croyoc, as we say in Irish, and in particular the future of public service broadcasting. On that occasion, I spoke based on my experience as an island of the crucial importance and the potential of public broadcasting as an invitation to the citizen to experience the timeless, the universal, the unimagined.  I spoke too of the dangers of what was then emerging and indeed strittening as a perspective which saw broadcasting as something lesser, as merely a production space for a commodified and homogenised entertainment. I reminded my audience on that occasion of the title of Raymond Williams' last great public lecture, Be the Arrow, Not the Target, with its powerful advocacy for active participatory culture as an alternative to the passive consumption of homogenised product, the outcome often of monopolised production and indeed distorted distribution practices. So it is a privilege for me to return to this great country now, Maru Throni, here in his president of Ireland, and I am grateful for the invitation to address you this afternoon. I was fascinated to learn of the early influence of Irish migrants as we have just heard. The influence of Irish migrants indeed on the development of this university itself. Its establishment in 1882 owed much to the efforts of George Morris O'Rourke, the son of an Irish Anglican parson from County Galway, who would go on to become Speaker of the House of Representatives and Chairman of the Council of this university. As is the case with many of the Antipodian universities, migrant Irish scholars exerted a significant intellectual influence in those early years. If I were as a former teacher of sociology to single out one, it would be Hutchison Macaulay Parsonet, author of what is considered by many as one of the foundational texts in the sociology of literature. He was like many Irish lawyers of his generation, schooled in the comparative jurisprudence of Henry Main, a method which extended to the study of literature and political economy. His first work, The Historical Method in Ethics, Jurisprudence and Political Economy, encompassed a critique of the classical political economy of his day, a matter which remains of enduring interest to me. Indeed, I suggest to you, students and to tell it, to ask the question, where in what journal today would you find all those terms sitting in the same title, The Historical Method in Ethics, Jurisprudence and Political Economy. The influence of Irish scholars and politicians, of course, is but one small strand of a long and enduring connection between New Zealand and Ireland. In the decade prior and immediately following the Treaty of Waitangi, many of the Irish who came to these shores were migrants, sometimes escaped or time-expired convicts from the peal and colonies across the Tasman, seeking to make, and often very often in this city, a new life in the rough and tumble trades of wailing, sealing and timber cutting. It was from such a milieu, for example, that the Sydney-born Irish father of the Maori politician and government minister, James Carroll, emerged. Others were colonial administrators and soldiers who came to serve here during the New Zealand wars. The best known, perhaps, of the Irish administrators may be William Hobson, the naval commander from County Waterford and first governor of New Zealand who gave this city its name and drafted the Treaty of Waitangi. In those early years, the pattern of Irish settlement was concentrated here on the North Island rather than the South Island, which was then developing according to the template of that champion of what was called systemic colonisation, Edward Gibbon Wakefield. For despite the involvement of John Robert Gottlie and James Edward Fitzgerald, both Anglo-Irish colonial enthusiasts, the enterprise of the New Zealand company had very few places for Irish migrants or Irish colonial intellectuals. It was the Otago Gold Rush of 1861 that brought the first large influx of Irish migrants, miners, who had first sought their fortune in Ballarat and Bendigo, where alluvial deposits were now exhausted. And 49ers, too, came from across the Pacific Ocean, where gold fever had slowly given way to the imposition of the rule of law by the new state of California. I recall as a sociologist teaching the rights of Josiah Strong about the discord which they addressed. God created man in a garden. The city is the result of the fall. The impact of such a wave is clearly visible when one compares the census returns. In 1861, on the cusp of discoveries at the Tuapika and Waipori Fields, the Irish-born population numbered 8,831. Just three years later, there were 20,317 Irish-born living in New Zealand. The Irish population in New Zealand had doubled. It would be inappropriate for me also to ignore a fundamental fact for that year. That is the year when there is a devastating loss in the Maori population. And it is then the great gap between settlers and Maori begins to emerge in its darkest form. As Angela McCarty, Jock Phillips and Terry Herrin have shown in their research, new arrivals from Ireland followed through what scanners of migration have referred to as a process of chain migration. That is one person following another from families and from friendship networks. As Irish people in New Zealand persuaded and through nomination schemes established by the provinces of the Young Colony secured the subsidised passage of their friends and family members. This process accelerated rapidly in the 1870s under the influence of the ambitious assisted passage scheme championed by Jules Vogel. It is at this stage as well there is a specific request for 1,300 females to head to this city here. This vast project of the early entrepreneurial state dramatically expanded the possibility for nomination and extended the potential of direct recruitment of new colonists from Ireland, which had hitherto been an unexplored possibility. In some provinces still beholden to the legacies of colonial companies such as the Canterbury Association. Indeed it was George Morris O'Rourke who as Minister for Immigration ensured an increase in the number of recruiting agencies dispatched to Ireland. The Irish born population then peaked at 51,406 on the cusp of the long depression in 1886. It would slowly decline thereafter as those with Irish ancestors gradually integrated in what would become Pachahoe society. The new Irish arrivals of the 1860s and 70s were predominantly small farmers and rural labourers, men and women who had grown up in an agrarian society as the historian Donald Atkinson has noted. They also, for example, shifted the concentration of the Irish presence to the South Island, to Canterbury where Irish men fulfilled the same role as they would in the United States, Irish navies, building the roads, bridges and railways of the rapidly expanding province and where Irish women were often engaged as domestic servants. On the west coast, towns like Hockateaker, a booming Goldrush town, developed for a time a distinctive Irish identity which indeed pubs and taverns named after familiar Irish heroes and patriots. The Irish arrivals participated too along with other migrants who came to this land in the creation of what really was a laboratory of social experiment for which the new democracy of New Zealand would become noted. If there was a distinctive Irish contribution to a country famed for its progressive legislation, it was perhaps, I suggest, a certain sense of recoil, a recoil from and an ambition to transcend what was perceived by them to be an oppressive colonial mindset inappropriate for the new setting in which they found themselves. This was deeply understandable given the Irish experience of the effects of oppression and injustice and exclusion, exclusion from all opportunities that were foreclosed by cultural assumptions among other measures as to their cultural assumptions as to their inferiority, exclusion on religious grounds and an unjust political economy. There were, however, perhaps moved too by an impulse to imagine a new world that could be created with freer institutional possibilities in the southern oceans. In the imperial world of the 19th century, this was demonstrated by an unusual parallel and indeed maybe it is a contradiction as the matter of land reform and land redistribution in New Zealand became inextricably linked in the eyes of the colonists with the importance of learning from the failures of landlordism in Ireland. 8,000 main landlords with several agents in between governing a huge state of poverty in which a million people would die while food was being exported and two million forced into exile. A people really submitted to the dictates of hegemonic economic theory which was actually being debated, sometimes referred to indeed as an act of God. Indeed one distinguished economist who was the founder of one of the Australian universities suggested that the Irish people were dying because they didn't understand economics. In 1881, Robert Stouche, a Scottish immigrant born on the Shetland Islands and a future premier published an interesting pamphlet, the Irish question and its lessons for colonists. Advocating the use of the then novel Land Tax as a mechanism to provide land to the small proprietor and prevent New Zealand from becoming an anthropodian replica of the Irish social structure. As I have said, a country of great land at estates, numerous toiling tenant farmers and an expanding grinding poverty that would have devastating consequences. In the same year, 1881, John Balans, the eldest son of an Irish tenant farmer and future premier, attended a mass meeting in Wellington in support of the Irish National Land League which had been established in Ireland three years earlier in County Mayo, 1979. In the words of its founding resolutions, it was aimed at the obtaining of the ownership of the soil by the occupiers. When the leader of the Irish National Land League, Michael Davitt, some years later toured New Zealand in 1896, he found here a reflection of what he felt were the most advanced ideas of his age, many of which he had advocated in Ireland, a progressive land tax, land redistribution, a determination to ensure that older people were ensured in income and old age, a faith in the pursuit of the public good, and a combination of a definition of welfare that would include those who worked on the land and those who worked in the cities in the factories. He was, in fact, advocating legislation to ensure that Labour, for example, secured a fairer share of the proceeds of growth. And he saw in this a recognition and vindication of a public world that he saw as possible, uniting the efforts, as I have said, of land and Labour. He attributed these policies he saw as successful to the influence of balance and his leftan and John McKenzie, who, of course, had witnessed island clearances as a young boy. And this is how Davitt wrote, an Irish Premier of New Zealand, aided chiefly by a Celtic Highlander, both of whom knew something of Irish and Scottish landlordism instrumental a few years ago in moulding the present land laws of the colony on the broad, just and rational principle of the land of a country for the people of the country and not for any class. We are reminded, by such words, that it was impossible to ignore the role that the clearances, the enclosures, had in creating the huge numbers of vagrants whose crimes would be used to fill the colonies with those transported in humiliating and degrading conditions. And as to dispossession in the country he was visiting, Michael Davitt would also write of the Māori land leakers and of Te Fiti and of how they, as he put it, were beaten by overwhelming forces, but the principle underlying their brave struggle was not crushed. If Ireland demonstrated to New Zealanders then an imposed destiny that was to be averted for Irish observers such as Davitt, New Zealand in its turn showed, by its willingness to experiment, to engage in quite new forms of thought and action and to challenge and overturn the failing orthodoxies of the old world and it was thus indicating that he thought an alternative pathway to the future. And indeed, according to the parity of esteem, going beyond simply recognising differences of culture, doing that, going that extra mile, that is a real achievement to be celebrated in the contemporary political space. Such values and impulses are surely needed too, now more than ever, for we need a global, national and international level, a morally informed sense of the importance of human dignity. A scholarship that is able to absorb the impulses of the human street and the human spirit that is able to craft alternative theoretical and policy models that can integrate a moral intent in ethics, ecology and economics. Good scholarship is inclusive scholarship and I suggest that we need to reframe, for example, economics as political economy in such a fashion as will generate responsibility, as will allow transparent participatory policy formation and give us the capacity to reconnect with our publics and their best ethical intent. There is much that we in Ireland can continue to learn from New Zealand like David and perhaps much we may learn anew and rediscover together as we face the great challenges of coming decades from which neither of us must shirk our responsibilities, the urgency for just and sustainable development, the necessity to address the causes and consequences of climate change, the prevention and resolution of conflicts, both ancient and new, the imperative to welcome those fleeing war, persecution and famine, the ever-present threat of nuclear weapons and the growing inequalities in wealth, income and opportunity and their contemporary threat to social cohesion in so many parts of the world. For citizens of Ireland and citizens of New Zealand, given our shared characteristics and what I suggest are our shared values, I believe there is so much we can continue to achieve together. We are both small countries in terms of population, population countries who value our democratic traditions and who seek to be authentic in our commitment to international institutions, a commitment expressed best perhaps by our shared abhorrence of the threat posed by nuclear weapons. It was the Irish representative at the General Assembly of the United Nations who first proposed in 1959 a resolution that would lead to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which has been from 1968 up to this year the primary international legal instrument designed to prevent the dissemination of nuclear weapons and to achieve their disarmament. The virtues required for this achievement were certainly tact, tenacity and a quiet and stubborn persistence. And as we look forward, what a great gift to humanity and to present and future generations it would be, if as was originally committed, a reduction in nuclear missiles and their eventual elimination was achieved for humanity. New Zealanders can be proud too of those virtues I have mentioned as they recall a steadfast and courageous of a kind that were required to refuse the presence of the USS Buchanan and secure New Zealand status as a nuclear-free nation, namely courage, bravery, and in the face of the oblique and sometimes open hostility of the two nuclear-armed states of the day. Fortitude was needed and it was shown. And fortitude is surely the word that comes to mind when one thinks and recalls the shocking bombing in July 1985 of the Rainbow Warrior, not far from here in Auckland Harbour. I think that many small nations in the face of such intimidation might have sought some kind of discreet compromise. It is rare in international relations to find what was an inspiring display of moral clarity. In June of this year, our two countries in cooperation again with many others co-sponsored the General Assembly resolution mandating the Convention of a New United Nations Conference to negotiate a new treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons. This treaty adopted in June and opened for formal signature last month prohibits the development, testing, production, stockpiling, stationing, transfer, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons. It represents the most widespread acceptance of the total threat to humanity posed by nuclear weapons. Some have decried this recent treaty, signed by so many members of the United Nations as being without merit, I quote. They have suggested that it lacks force because it does not carry the approval of those who insist on continuing to possess nuclear weapons. Now, let us be very clear what these critics are suggesting. It is no more and no less than claiming a right, the right to hold what is a veto for the existing nuclear arms states on policymaking in this area. Such a view simply echoes what is already an abuse of veto holding permanent members of the Security Council of the United Nations. Our mutual faith and trust in multilateral institutions, Ireland and New Zealand and the cooperation between nation states finds expression in our longstanding commitment as well to the contribution of personnel to United Nations peacekeeping activities. Indeed, may I suggest that the principles that have underpinned peacekeeping for six decades, the requirement for consent of the main parties to the conflict, to implement the United Nations mandate without fear or favour and the non-use of force, acceptance, self-defence and defence of the mandate are more apposite to the sensibility of smaller nations such as ours. And then as to some current challenges, many of which we share and will share, our two island nations have been endowed by nature with a temperate climate, enabling a kind of past agriculture that is to some degree a product of past dependency, reflecting our history as suppliers of primary products in our case to Britain. The entry of Britain and Ireland into the European economic community with its common agriculture policy was a significant change for both of us but with different consequences. The structure and success of our agricultural industries brings with it, of course, a unique challenge for both our countries in the battle against climate change. Agriculture accounts for nearly a third of Ireland's greenhouse gas emissions and I understand somewhat more here in New Zealand, which makes both of us outliers when compared to the other industrialised countries who participated in the first commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. We have both adopted emissions trading schemes as a policy measure to reduce fossil fuel emissions. These schemes exclude the emissions generated by pastoral farming, which, due to our unique emissions profile, will require distinctive novel and sometimes difficult policy measures to be directed to dairy and beef farming even as the temptation is now to increase our national herds to meet rising wild demand. We should not and must not underestimate the depth or nature of this task. The recalibration of our agricultural industry to meet obligations we have accepted by international treaty is an obligation we must and which I believe we can meet. We can enlist the benefits of science and technology but it will also require being resolute in the tough decisions we may need to take and for which we must educate our publics. The agreement signed at the Paris Climate Conference in December 2015 is an enormous achievement representing an important moral milestone as imperfect as it may be in recognising the demands of climate justice and what is the imperative for survival for so many people in this century, particularly in the developing world. The decarbonisation of our societies demanded by the pledge to pursue efforts to limit the global temperature increased to one and a half degrees Celsius of pre-industrial levels will not be easy nor can it be made without sacrifice. It will require the provision of all members of our society engaged in the production, distribution, consumption and exchange of agricultural products to ensure that our countries can contribute to the effort truly required under the Paris Climate Accord. Yes, it will require new ideas, skills and methods, the opening of new frontiers of science into technology, a renewed commitment to the exchange of technical expertise and may I suggest the recollection too of much of the wisdom of ancient methods, balances and symmetries of ecological management of ancient societies. The agreement of the Sustainable Development Goals in New York in September of 2015 constitutes what is the potential to be as important in achievement as the Paris Climate Accord. Over 193 states resolved to in poverty and hunger, combat inequalities and economic incumbent opportunity to build peaceful, just and inclusive societies and to create conditions for a shared prosperity. We have used this language before but as we face 2050 we're 24% of the young people under 21 years of age that will be on the continent of Africa, 40% of the young people under 21, 24% of the total population of the planet. Can we face what is really a great opportunity with our existing models of economic development? The answer of course is no and therefore we should consider in universities like this as I have said in other universities how we can enable the benefits and consequences of science and technology to leap over borders, not wait if you like to be the tail end of investment from existing structures internationally, locate themselves in the continent of expanding population and create new possibilities. We must not, I believe, be dislodged or dissuaded from these objectives that I have mentioned. No matter how powerful that seek to eshu the global common good in the service of narrow sectional interests, there will always be those who will make the case for what they regard as the tyranny of the contemporary sectional interests that will defeat if you like the longer term common goals. Tomorrow I will have the great honour too of visit to the Waiatangi Treaty grounds and I could not help but be put in mind of our own treaty to the Good Friday Agreement in Ireland. The cornerstone of a peace process for which demands our continual attention in Northern Ireland. In both cases, it is when we see these treaties as living treaties, as processes towards the achievement of a shared dignity of recognised differences and belief in the possibilities of the future that we can in fact see what they can deliver most for us. The suggestion that indivisibility may not be the sole defining characteristic of sovereignty imagined by Thomas Hobbes and Jean Boudin, but that sovereignty may be instead a matter of perpetual renegotiation and debate. Something shared, carried out in a democratic, respectful and inclusive spirit is both profound and liberating, especially when it is imagined in practice. I've spoken in other places of the necessary caustices of discourse, the complex and intricate relationships between peoples embodied in these respective agreements that I've mentioned. They require a constant commitment to ensure that they remain living documents capable of achieving the full promise of their possibilities. Both our nations are small open economies, highly open to wild markets, yet also because of that very openness vulnerable to changes in international commodity prices, the structure of global value chains, and the sudden shifts in shocks to capital and financial flows. The forms of both capital and the nature of their flows have changed radically in the recent decades of deregulation. They have created what I suggest is a dystopia. I also have found in recent years been speaking on the issues of indigenere, and nowhere have I seen a more blatant disregard for international law than on the part of certain corporations who have sake to indigenous communities defending themselves against the poison in their waters. We will fight this case until hell freezes over and then on the ice. I have seen in fact where in countries like Ecuador, peasant communities have been faced with aname of lawyers themselves remember products of universities who have in fact said that they will follow such a set of practices, deficient that this is what I mean by what I have said earlier by restoring a moral context to these subjects which some of us have had the privilege of teaching. The economic forces are referred to are not natural phenomena and neither are they inevitabilities. They are the product of negotiated institutional design and public policy. And concerted action by states acting in cooperation with each other can, as they have in the past, constrain, control and bind such forces in the service of the common good. But it requires regulation. It is in the capital flows that are outside regulation that are not and never were available for productive use, that the greatest uncertainties in global conditions for economies large and small are so. As we have learned in Ireland where our productive economy stayed strong in 2007 to 12, but the speculative consequences were had to be visited on our people. The economics of the future, it will, I believe, inevitably deal with the challenges of building and securing social cohesion. More equal societies, as one study after another shows, in every part of the world, more equal societies are healthier societies. Societies with deep inequalities are neither viable in terms of a stable, cohesive citizenship nor are they healthy societies. Wild capital can yield short-term benefits for the few but be destructive for the many. And the forms of capital which prevail within an economy, they're not the same as each other in terms of their consequences, in any part of the globe. We need then to privilege productive capital flows that lead to investment strategies that are socially accountable, job-creatic, sustainable. And this requires allowing economies and the societies which they serve to level up. And may I repeat, we must reject the suggestion that there is anything inevitable about the practices of any dominating hegemon in terms of international trade. This has been manifested most recently in the creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to which New Zealand has already subscribed and of which Ireland is now a member. If these measures have to be at their best, such institutions must channel flows of capital that will enhance the long-run economic growth potential of developing countries and finance sustainable and sustained development. And yet in this, the 10th year since the global financial crisis, the broader international financial architecture has yielded only most painfully and gradually to change. We should question whether the institutions charged with regulating global flows of capital and finance have sufficient resources, the appropriate capacity, and most importantly, the agreed mandate that is necessary to achieve the economic and social objectives to which we are committed. There have been small revelatory but welcome changes in the advice as offered by the International Monetary Fund on measures of fiscal policy and the control of movements of capital and the report of the Commission on Global Poverty established by the World Bank, which recommended broadening the concept of poverty to include non-monetary measures of deprivation, all welcome. But we must ask as many in the global street are ever more vociferously are now asking and most painfully experiencing as to whether some of the ideas which led to the global financial crisis still underpin global policy. Those who still believe that private financial markets will allocate resources to their best most efficient use and must be allowed to do so without regulation, they have not gone away. And those that serve them are back on bonuses and the universities that are producing the rationalisation for such bonuses are still in business. I think taking into account the necessity for sustainable and just development, me were well asked on behalf of whos and which interests do they speak and act these international institutions. May I suggest that the great matters before us in the coming decade cannot be met with the ideas or assumptions of what are now failing. Failed paradigms of a less than democratic, often authoritarian, frequently patriarchal past. Our new challenges in new circumstances must be addressed drawing on the best of the new morally engaged scholarship that values social cohesion. And this is something we must pursue collectively at a global level with the same vigor and spirit with which our two countries have addressed the threat of a nuclear armageddon. Can we in these difficult times, I ask, summon again the same openness and admiration for new ideas and willingness to break with old orthodoxies that Michael Davitt noted here in this country a century ago. Can we bring the same determination to share, to debate, to contest and to constantly renegotiate sovereignty in a democratic manner shown by the peoples of Ireland and New Zealand have shown in these recent years? Can we bring the same moral clarity and ethical vision, the same courage and fortitude, the same willingness to confront unaccountable power that has been shown by the peoples of this country in declaring and enforcing a nuclear free zone? Can we bring this freshness of thought to matters as economic internationally? I ask this question of both of our peoples. How we answer such questions will determine whether we can confront and overcome the challenges of a new century. It is essential in all of this that we retain our optimism, the necessary courtesies of ethical discourse, I suggest, our will, but a good beginning might be to combine our efforts in achieving for our peoples what is little less than a new literacy on economic and fiscal matter. And all of this brings me back to that first paper in New Zealand in 1999 which was to a conference debating how we might, by defending public service broadcasting, secure and deepen the public world. That struggle continues in new conditions. And I suggest that we must not merely hope. We must imagine. We must change. And we must achieve. Thank you so much for listening. Ladies and gentlemen, President Higgins has kindly consented to take some questions from the floor. So I believe there are some microphones. Yes, in fact, I can see them now out there in the audience. So if you have a question, if you could raise your hand and we will do our best to find you. Sir. Yes, President Higgins. Yes, thank you, President Higgins. In 1923, when the Irish Free State had been formed, they introduced Gaelic as a compulsory subject in schools. I'd be interested if that turned out to be a help or a hindrance to the Gaelic language. You'll understand I'm a Maori language student, although far from fluid. It's a very good question. And I think that what you need to think about, in Irish, we call it Gaelic agentuk, compulsory Irish. And the debate about compulsory Irish is a very important one. Just to give you context, I think that the cultural revival movement of the late 19th century is very, very important in understanding the formation of the new Irish state. It's a moment of intense cultural activity with men and women writing, publishing pamphlets, exchanging essays, producing works. This is the Irish revival, roughly from about 1890 to 1910, as it's intense period. Why was it said there is a very famous essay by the first president of Ireland, Douglas De Hether, on replacing English with Irish? You have to understand what lay behind Creven-Even, Douglas De Hether's essay. English had been imposed on Ireland in a number of ways. At one time, you wore a stick around your neck and you put a notch in it every time you used an Irish word. And when you went to school the following day, you were punished on the basis of the number of marks on the stick. And then again, I remember as well, even in my time when I was in active politics, people referred to the Irish language, people referred to English as what you needed for the bush or chiankatata chastat on board, what you needed for the bush because our people were had to learn English to go abroad because of the migrants. So that's the background point people said, then we will restore every... In many ways, it created a mythology that suited an old... They're drawn from ancient times and that you could in fact put it into place and so on. I think myself that it was a mistake. I think that the essay might have been, I understand how it came to be written, but I don't agree with it. For the very reason, Haidamself, for example, spoke five languages, including he was very influenced by Hebrew and how it had been brought back. But he also spoke, his wife was German, he spoke at least five that I know of. So then what happened then, I think, was very interesting. At one stage, another of my predecessors, I think it's in Eamon de Valera's time as Prime Minister, as Tishok, we would say, a number of all the state servants changed their names into Irish. And if that was going to revive the subject. And I actually wrote a poem about that one time, called Revivalous, which I couldn't publish when I was Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaelter. But you then move on and where are we now? Our issue now is not basic knowledge because it is taught in all the primary schools, which I think is very good. You also have some schools at second level, which are all Irish, they teach all the subjects through Irish. I myself would have learned Latin and Greek, for example, through Irish and all of the subjects at different stages. And then I'm not a native speaker, but when I was in England, there was a gap in my use of Irish when I was in America at the same. But I represented my constituents, which are about 30% at one stage, Irish was their first language every day. And I was speaking around in a gait at the morning at eight o'clock. And also I'm the Minister-Responsor for the establishment of the Irish Television Service, tijika harnawadu, i'r rai telefisi na Gaelter. All of this, what I'm really saying is, I'm in favour of maragot me, I've said in Irish first because it's easier for me, maragot me, kind of ondini a vala dhan changa, encouraging people, bringing people to the language rather than forcing it. And let us say the language, the television service that I established between 1993 and 1997, which is now going strong. The reason was I said to Toghanshan, give the language a second chance because they had been taught in a rather authoritarian way in some occasions, and people had a bad experience. So therefore I would say, give it another chance. So you would see everything in Irish, you see the subjects in English and so forth. And in many ways, if you're asking me, it's a long answer, I've given you a question which was washed, I think, for it to answer you properly. And that is, if you said to me, you must encourage and lure people to the language, make the language attractive. The language also needn't stand for every antiquated authoritarian idea that was ever dreamed up and imagined. The ancient Irish were people, for example, who in relation to, if you were unhappy in your marriage, you walked several times around your partner and you said, I'm off. So at the point about it is that the language has never, unfortunately at different times, I do remember people foisted onto the language, attitudes that really had nothing to do with the essential Irish spirit. It is a language of life and thankfully it's been spoken more and more and more by young people. And I am really pleased to see the significance that is given to the Māori culture and to the fact that there is welcome in the public space. It's in the public space it must be recognised and that's good. So as Minister you used to have the culture portfolio and you know nowadays we see the kind of development of a transnational or regional identity such as the European identity. How do you see as the kind of European identity? How does that interplay with, say, the Irish or other national identities in your view? I think again another wonderful question in a way because this is what I mean by the European street. Noted that I quoted Raymond Williams' article Be the Arrow Not the Target. That is for participatory active culture rather than being a passive consumer of homogenised product. I remember the French president, Meet Home once said that some of the finest films in the world were made in the United States but it was unreasonable to suggest that all films of the world that would be seen by Europeans would come from a small corner of the west coast of the United States. And I myself as culture minister had this debate with Jack Valenti and others and I used to remind him, for example, of the new wonderful black film directors in Harlem and places like that which because he represented west coast filmmaking. Heterogeneity is an essential part. That is, what would a European culture be like? It would be informed by some basic ideas in relation to democracy, in relation to discourse. I think very often what I think should have happened. Remember now about the European Union in a way? It didn't deal with culture and the founding treaties. First of all, it had a bad experience with the abuse of culture as an ocean through fascism. It also assumed that the Council of Europe would deal with culture. And then a number of times as it came up when I myself was attending council meetings, people thought the culture was something you should keep close to education at home. So therefore it was an ideal matter for subsidiarity. What I think people need to do when it would have been, it would have been, what is very, very wonderful would be the idea that there are core values in relation to equality, rights, participation, gender equality, respect for the environment. We in Ireland gained from our membership of the European Union in relation to equality of men and women in relation to the environment, in relation to fair wages, all of this. But the values got lost in a way because I think the Lisbon Treaty, when you look at the history of the treaties, remember it had two great principles, the competitiveness and cohesion. Cohesion got lost along the way in my view. And thus I think that at the time of the crisis recently, it was something very un-European to hear some nations speaking of other nations with language that was simply not the language of a union. I had discussed this with the President officially. I've discussed it with heads of state in other countries in Europe. And we are all of the same mind that the language wasn't generous. And therefore I think as well, it is called spade spade. If you're talking about a union, you're talking about all of the members sharing the possibilities going forward together. You're not talking about a hegemon. And you're not talking about a hegemon and chief acolyte. You're talking about all of the countries of the European Union with shared values moving forward together. And what people in South America, Asia, elsewhere, when they look at the European Union and they're very positive, they want a region that could be exemplary in relation to rights, decent work, eliminating poverty, participating internationally in the best interests if you like of global security and that. Really the idea that you somehow or another patch together a union as a kind of a complement to a set of fiscal arrangements isn't really sufficient to restore confidence. And I think that the conversation with the European Streets is the thing that has to be restored. You cannot abandon those who didn't participate in growth, those who didn't participate in income, and those who are unemployed, and particularly the young unemployed in so many of the states, and abandon them to a discourse that is anophobic, potentially racist, and so on. That's why in my speeches I've been mentioning about in the same way as literacy was important to parliamentarism across Europe, the new fiscal and economic literacy, making this realm a countable and participatory by publics is where you will in fact parliament. I've spoken to the European Parliament, to the Parliamentary Assembly, the Council of Europe, and I said to them, if you allow these decisions to be leached out of parliament and out of the parliamentary discourse onto the spaces where they will be abused, there will be a terrible price to be paid for it. And I totally agree with you when people of your age enter the rest of it, is you can make... The Europe can be met... Europe can in fact actually be that region, but so also can the other regions around the world in ways. But culture in the end, it's not a matter of... It's... I think if you asked us, those of us small countries like us, I make many invitations to people to examine what I call the ethics of memory and fall in polarity and Hannah Arendt and others like that. The hardest journey many people have is in relation to impart examining its conscience and tendencies to domination being made critical and people examining the consequences. Do we need hegemons or do we need a peaceful world? And how much will have to be given away at the level of ideas and so on? Sometimes I actually think, I was thinking the other day when I often have referred to gaited communities. What would it be like if our world and the great cities, like our descended, into a scene where you had gaited communities of the rich and the people out on the street perceived as those who want what we have and won't give to them? And in the same way, you could get gaited conversations. In the international diplomacy very often, we're getting gaited conversations. That is, there are certain things which can't be raised with those who are perceived to be powerful. And that, in a way, is something that will have to change. That is what will give energy once again to the United Nations and its agencies. That we have time for today. But before they depart, the University of Auckland would like to present a gift of Toanga Ponamu to President Higgins and Mrs Sabina Higgins. It's a tricky business, this, ladies and gentlemen. I just to give you a little bit of background on what just occurred. The toki is a symbol of chiefly dignity and mana authority. The toki were worn by Māori elders as a symbol of power and wisdom. The toki was a chisel tool used by the Māori people of Aotearoa, New Zealand, to carve the great canoes and carve detailing on their meeting houses. The koru is a spiral shape based on the shape of a new unfurling silver fern frond, symbolising new life, growth, strength and peace. It is an integral symbol in Māori art, carving and tattoos. Ladies and gentlemen, if I could ask you to just remain seated while the official party leaves the theatre, please join me in thanking the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins and Mrs Sabina Higgins.


The way Opa is structured is Hierotically We get the hierarchy of objectives from metaphysics to Pistomology to ethics Politics and of course aesthetics and within each one of those branches The presentation is Hierotical It's a logic to it for example in epistemology we start with the senses the validity of the senses The theory of concept formation the concept of objectivity and of course leading up to reason If we look at the ethics we start with the nature of man and then we go to the good virtue and the payoff The moral purpose of life happiness So the book is structured Based on the hierarchy But at no point are any of these concepts kind of floating abstractions. I've seen I've seen Objectivists, maybe it's been a long time since I've seen one of these present these try to do these graphs and charts and and arrows and all these concepts as And they're completely floating not attached to anything, but at every point in the book Dr.. Pika brings in relevant facts The concreets to prove and to validate the particular point We'll always have a reference to reality. We're never left with an abstraction or tied to everything else and Of course, we know that to validate we must reduce the reality Leonard Ironman teaches us that and introduction to objective systemology and Leonard Reinforces that in opa. We need to reduce to reality, but then we need to integrate with the rest of our knowledge and opa The ideas are constantly being integrated Every new point is integrated with all the previous points So for example, take the chapter in capitalism towards the end of Opal I Mean capitalism obvious sometimes often is presented as a standalone kind of unit, you know, we talk about the Politics economics and kind of standalone, but not an opa it rests completely on a theory of government on a mall on a morality of egoism on an objective epistemology and In a primacy of existence Indeed capitalism is a system of a privacy of existence and privacy of existence Leads inevitably to capitalism and that's what Leonard shows us in Opal if you think about the subtitles under capitalism Capitalism is the only moral social system Capitalism is a system of objectivity a position to capitalism as dependent on what would you say? altruism bad economics, but you know Canes What is it in opa as a bad epistemology a position to capitalism as dependent on a bad epistemology? Now it's enough to read those subtitles of the chapter in capitalism to know that we are not libertarians They wouldn't even understand What we're talking about and The chapter on moral social system Leonard not only shows the dependence of the ideas of capitalism of freedom on a particular view of morality But then he shows our capitalism the system of freedom reinforces All those more value more values and virtues then indeed to practice the virtues fully one must be free More must live under capitalism and he goes through every single one of the virtues and shows what it means To be independent under freedom Versus to struggle to be independent when force is exerted upon you by the mixed economy or the statists And he does this for every single one of the virtues Capitalism is a system of objectivity covers the objectivity of values and why Capitalism is consistent with Rand's theory of concept formation Well, it's consistent with the idea of objectivity indeed everything in opa is Integrated around the core of iron rands philosophy, which is her epistemology everything is there to show how a theory of concepts gives rise to this entire philosophy and Leonard has a whole chapter on on objectivity After all, this is the philosophy of objectivism and Yet, Rand didn't write much about objectivity. There's not much in the corpus on objectivity So a lot of the material in this chapter is new It's what Leonard got from iron rand directly and think about the subheading I mean, I love this subheading. It's probably my favorite in the entire book In the in the chapter on objectivity This is the objectivity. What is objectivity, right? objectivity as volitional adherence to reality by the method of logic Objectivity as volitional adherence to reality by the method of logic Think about how much is compressed into that sentence We've got volition Free will is essential to objectivity and therefore essential to everything about our philosophy Volition is at the core of the heart of everything that nothing is meaningful without it But it's not any anything. It's all whim in a sense. It's volition as adherence to reality You've got what what axiom you've got the primacy of existence Reality is what we must adhere to and by what method well by the method of reason by the method of logic The unique Cognitive tool that human beings have So in one sentence and not even a sentence a Subheading he conveys so much and so much integration so much of the of the heart of the philosophy the metaphysics and epistemology on which everything else is built is conveyed Just then of course, then there's a whole chapter That articulates the case that explains it that concretizes it that integrates it So this new understanding of object objectivity, which is new to iron man It's presented to us in opa. I think really for the first time as a whole as a unit Something I think we can all start to understand. She shows that this new Concept informs her entire philosophy And if you look at the sub chapters that come afterwards if you look at how he ties This back so he I'm just gonna read you some of the sub chapters from later chapters Notice the reference to epistemology and metaphysics, right? Values as objective Independence as a primary orientation to reality Honesty is the rejection of unreality Primacy of existence sex is metaphysical Statism is the politics of Unreason Capitalism is a system of objectivity Opposition to capitalism. It's dependent bad epistemology. We've covered these art as the concretization of metaphysics and aesthetics aesthetic value as objective Thank you for listening or watching the Iran book show if you'd like to support the show We make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me. You get value from listening. You get value from watching Show your appreciation you can do that by going to your own book show comms last support I go to patreon subscribe star locals and just making a appropriate contribution On any one of those any one of those channels also if you'd like to see the Iran book show grow Please consider sharing our content and of course subscribe press that little bell button right down there on YouTube so that you get Announcement when we go live and for you those of you who are ready Subscribers and those of you who already supporters of the show. Thank you. I very much appreciate it


Once I attended this conference, they have lighted candle in the dark room. It was like that. It inspired me a lot. People are so helpful, people are supportive. So that initially got us to, okay, hey, we have to keep coming here next year, next year. It's a conference where you get to have super interesting discussions, like regardless if you're audience or if you're speaker. I've made many new friends and established connections that I think that will maintain for a lifetime. I think it's a very good place to be if you want to discuss software and building it in a functional programming way.


We're down here in Puerto Rico doing an annual gunnery training with our other detachment of the Puerto Rican National Guard. The particular focus for this training is the gunnery piece, the weapons themselves. Having the back seaters be able to work with the Puerto Ricans and their knowledge, they have a certain level of expertise because they were able to participate in a range like this more often than we are. Being able to lean into that and get our guys' familiarity with the weapons systems is invaluable and increases our level of training dramatically. It makes us able to do training like this up in New Hampshire and the surrounding areas at Fort Drone. So there's a master door gunner. He's been amazing with me being a brand new, steps aren't the colors any of us here in Puerto Rico. He's been doing this for ten years and now I just have an opportunity to come down here and figure out how he's kind of made this process seamless. He's been nothing but great help for me in the state of New Hampshire. Really happy about it. I'm excited. I feel pretty good being able just to keep training with our sister unit. We just came back from a deployment a year ago. We're in K-4 together. Just being able to continue doing joint training with them, creating that unique cohesion and bonding. It's a blessing for us. We're looking forward to make this a yearly event so we can keep doing it every year.


This guy was driving. He was drunk on his motorcycle. I'd probably say he's going about 120 miles an hour. And there was a trailer, like a horse trailer, but it wasn't enclosed. It was kind of open. And as he was going, he did not see that they had stopped at the stop sign. Well, this motorcycle driver just went right through the cage and into the back with the horses and everything, and came and slapped against the back of the trailer. And literally we had to kind of like, you know, those cartoons where they slap up against and it looks like they fall and they're all flattened. Well, you pretty much look like that, literally. Before you decide to do anything this holiday season, make sure you don't drink and drive.