Okay. Perfect. So, good afternoon, everyone. Here we go. Perfect. Good afternoon, everyone, for the next, until 3 p.m. Because, of course, we started late, but until 3 p.m., we are going to talk about, in this open mic session, we are going to talk about scientific collaborations and beyond science and culture. This is not a talk, a specific talk where I have to say something specific or so important about that topic, but much more like an introduction to start the communication between us and where we can open this forum and exchange ideas about how we can collaborate much more efficiently beyond cultures and beyond countries. So, generally, the first question I always ask is, are we culturally so different? I think that 100 years ago, definitely it was the case. But today, for example, when I put a picture like this, which I did in my talk yesterday, I'm pretty sure that 99.9% of the people in the room know exactly who these people are. And if you ever step foot in the United States, you realize that the Simpsons, they are really an American family. Really, they are an American family. I'm not saying that all Americans are like the Simpsons, but they're a way of life, the way the house looks like. When you step into an American house, for example, wooden houses, which for me was a big surprise because in Africa, only poor people have houses in wood. But in the United States, 80% of the houses, bad houses, best houses, they are generally wooden houses. When you enter into an American house, it looks like this. Most of the time, sorry, they're jolts, they're what is going on in their life, they're school bus. It's very, very an American thing. But somehow, whenever you put this picture everywhere, actually, people will comment who these people are. I remember I had a cousin, this was like 10 or 15 years ago, because where I live, actually, every summer, our parents send us to the village so that we can be with the grandparents. And back then, there were not a lot of places in our village where you could watch TV. So he will walk, my cousin will walk kilometers every Saturday or Sunday to see the episodes of the Simpsons. To tell you how important that was for him. And when I, for example, put something like this, which I did yesterday, everybody understands the joke. So for us, it's something normal to know about Simpsons and all the Simpsons jokes and everything. But when we think about it, actually, it is not that much because this is something that is profoundly rooted in one culture. So somehow today, because of this world where we are interconnected, we are sometimes much more close in culture than what we think. Sometimes we think that because we come from different cultures, we don't necessarily communicate, but we have vectors of culture like, for example, the Simpsons that somehow bind us. So there are some differences that are obvious. Race, which is a very obvious difference. You have multiracial countries, countries that are not multiracial, but relationships between race are not so evident and not so obvious. You have national and ethical origin. This just roots in history. You have countries where people have a tendency to get along very well and countries where they kind of don't like their neighbors. And it's been like that for hundreds of years and it's still like that today. Even though I do think that we are living one of the most peaceful times of mankind history. Gender. How do we deal with gender issues? How do females deal with men? How do men deal with females? This is not the same thing if you are in Cameroon, in France, in the US, in India, in China, in Zimbabwe. It's not the same thing. There are some differences sometimes that are big, sometimes that are small, subtle. And most of the time we are not even aware of it. Why? Because we just are. It's like, you know, I always say it's difficult to convince a fish that he's wet. If you are somewhere in some culture, then you behave a certain way and you don't necessarily understand that other people behave in a radically different way. Wealth. Generally in rich countries they have a set of rules that they respect. And in countries where wealth is not so abundant, generally they have other sets of rules. Language. Very important. We know today that English is, sorry, the lingua franca of research. If you want to do research you need to have a sufficient command of English. That's just what it is. So we have our fellows that are native English speakers to have that advantage that they already master English, which is good. Those who are not native English speakers really have to make the effort to go to that. And some people are very willing to make the efforts and others not so much. Religion. You have, once again, differences of religion. Sometimes within the country, sometimes across borders. How do we deal with that? There are areas where it's very difficult to evolve when you don't have the dominant religion and areas where actually people are much more tolerant. Sexual orientation. If, for example, you are gay or transgender, the way you will be treated will not be the same in the United States or in France or in my home country, Cameroon, for example, where it is illegal to be homosexual. So generally whenever you take all of these issues, we generally think that we are tolerant and we can accept differences without much difficulty. Here in the room I don't think, how many nationalities do we have here? More than 20. More than 20. So, and I think that so far we did get along very well. We don't have problems. We venture out well with each other. It's not a big problem. Sometimes we see some people doing this thing that way and we're like, okay, fine. If we want to do it that way, you know, I don't have a problem with that. So most of the time the differences that we see do not disturb us. And what we think is that these variations of this difference of culture are a richness for mankind. And when these differences disturb us, because sometimes in other cultures we see stuff and we're just like, okay, I will not say anything but I don't like it. But sometimes when these differences disturb us then we think that we're intelligent and smart enough to just disregard it and just, you know, move on with our own way of doing things. But generally I do think that we underestimate the importance of culture.  But still sometimes I think that we tend to underestimate the importance of culture. And this is my personal equations. I always say that every human being is in path integral between his birth day and now, his birth place and here. You integrate around the environment in space and time. That is you.  If you're born in a family of people that are very open-minded, generally you will be open-minded. If you're born in a family that is rich, where on every vacation you just go to Trieste to spend your vacations, it's not the same thing as, you know, you're born in a family that is poor and when on vacations you have, for example, to work for, to pay the tuition for the next year. So this is something that is random. You don't have a, you cannot master that. And this is the same thing for all of us. We're just born in a family and that's it. And this effect I think is deterministic. This is not noise. It's culture. Very probably if you're born in Saudi Arabia, you will be Muslim. Very probably. Very probably if you're born in a predominantly Christian country, you will be Christian. If you are born in India, you will much more belong to one of the Indian religions. If you're born in France, much probably you will speak French and think that the French system is the best system. And if you're born in America, you will think that America is the greatest thing on earth. Just what it is. This part, the culture, the fact that the mean field around you thinks a certain way, speaks a certain way, understands the world a certain way. This polarizes you even if your family within that culture is rich or poor or this or that. Generally this exactly defines how we dress, how we speak, how we interact with people. This is the most important thing generally. And we underestimate it. We think that we are, you know, individuals that are free of, free thinkers and we have ideas because we are intelligent enough to figure it out ourselves. So culture is very inbuilt, very deeply. This is truly something that I think. And some manifestations of inbuilt social differences are well known. Management of social hierarchy problems. How do we deal with people that are above us? When you are a PhD student and you have an advisor and you disagree, for example, how do you manage that? And I would say Western countries in my experience, you know, the PhD can just come to his advisor and say, you know, I think that this thing goes in a way that I don't like, you know, I'm not satisfied with this and that and generally you can openly discuss that. In other countries, it's not necessarily so. You have countries that have very stiff social hierarchy, most African countries, for example, if I wanted to talk about something that I know, the social hierarchy is very stiff and you will not be able to talk with your supervisor or anyone that is socially higher than you as friendly as you will do, for example, in a Western country. Management of gender issues. It's not the same thing depending on the country, where you are and the culture. The way you even talk to females is not the same. I remember, for example, something I like to do is I like when I organize conferences in Africa to bring some Western colleagues and most of them, most of the time, is the first time they come to Africa. And of course what they see when they are there is very, very different than what they think. And I remember one day, one of my colleagues, I went there with them and I organized a conference and after that I was told the country and it was like, I'm very surprised the way you talk to females. I'm like, what is that? It's like, you're always so respectful. Not me, but it was like the people and actually thought bad about it and it's true. Like in Africa, you cannot be rude to a female that you don't know. It's not accepted that you talk to a female and you are rude. But because they were coming from abroad, they had the idea that we're polygons and females are not important and they arrived and they see a country where actually we are very, very careful about how we address the opposite sex and vice versa. So gender issues are very, which doesn't mean that there are no problems, there are. And of course I'm sure that a lot of people from southern countries, they arrive in the west and they see that the proportion of females that are in a position of power is higher than in their country. That I don't know, 25% of females will be director of the institute or a big professor and maybe they're not very used to that when they come from a southern country. So we are not necessarily the same, by the way, we manage gender issues. We are very culturally driven. Management of success, failure. Some people say that one of the big advantage of, for example, the American society is that it is a society that manages well failure. They say, hey, you know, try it. It doesn't work, no problem, you try again. With other societies, people don't want to try because when they fail, people finger point them, oh, you couldn't make it. For example, this is, and I could see that. I could see how it's different in Africa and in Europe and in the United States. The way that young master degree or PhD student do things. Clearly you talk to Americans, they try different things. When it works, they capitalize. When it doesn't work, they still capitalize because, you know, I've done something that didn't work. I think there's a famous quote by Edison. I think he invented the bulb after 100 trials and he said, I discovered 99 ways not to find a bulb or something like that. Which is really an American vision of success and failure, which is not prevalent, believe me. Elsewhere in the world, generally people are shy to try because when they fail, the society finger points them. Management of interaction with unknown colleagues, which is very important when you arrive here, most of the people that are here, you don't know them. So how do you interact? There are societies where it's very easy to say, hey, how do you do? My name is this, et cetera. And societies that are much more like, you know, it's difficult to talk to people that you don't know. Management of social interaction with people you know. This also is not an easy thing. Management of resolution of personal conflicts. When you disagree with someone, how do you manage that? Once again, this is something that is done differently depending on the culture. So I always encourage young scientists to be aware of these differences in culture because this is the most important thing they will have to face in their career, if they want to have what I call a successful career. You will not have a successful career if you stay in your country and do not interact with people outside. Even if you are the most clever guy, you will be successful when, sorry, you will be able to interact with people from your country, which is easy. You speak the same language, you have the same culture, et cetera, blah, blah, blah.  Not the same gender, not the same sex, not the same political views, not the same anything. You still need to be able to interact with these people efficiently. One point is you need to fine tune the public representation of yourself.  They don't know you. So the only thing that the first idea that they have with you is the way you are. You need to be aware of that. I will take a very simple example. As Africans, we speak loud. That's just how we are. We speak loud. You go in African streets, everyone is like, ah, ah, ah, and they speak very, very loud. I'm there and I realize that, for example, when I'm with my African friends, like in France, for example, and when we speak, even, I don't know, we're, I don't know. Just in the street, we really do speak loud. I'm not aware of that. And it took me some time to realize that. But for other people, it is rude. Because generally in Europe, people, when they speak, they're like, you know, bonjour, comment ça va, etc. I don't know, bonjour, comment ça va. It's another, and it's just the way we speak. We just speak loud. And of course, if you come here in Europe for, you know, one week and you go back to Africa, it's not a problem. But if you have to come in every conference, and in every conference when you're in the building, people know you're there, even though you're not doing anything wrong, if you're not aware that this thing is not universal, then maybe people will be like, yeah, this guy is a nice guy, but man, he speaks too loud. So be aware of that. This, I'm taking just this example. But there are a lot of examples. Different things that are very inbuilt with us, we don't necessarily realize, find you in the public representation of yourself. Be aware that the people will judge you, because even though we say we don't judge people, we judge people by their appearance when we don't know them. After that, when you know the people, you can find you, but at the beginning, you don't know people, so you judge what you see, okay? So like, you know, the way you dress, the way you talk to people, you have to be very careful about that, because that's how people will judge you first. Like, for example, there is, I saw one day someone on television that was talking about the social distances. In America, for example, the social distance is large. If you come to less than 20 centimeters close to an American, it will feel very uncomfortable. Very. But for example, for Asians, it can be very close. For Africans, I would say it's intermediate. But for Americans, for example, they don't like when you touch them. And it's just cultural. Hey, how do you touch them? It's the kind of cringe. In France, for example, you see someone, hey, how do you do? It's very like, you know, in the US, no. It's some kind of, they have a social distance that is, and when you arrive there, you need to understand that. So when you arrive in a place that is not your culture, you need to be very aware of what are the cultural codes and be sure that you blend in. And don't come with your own way of doing things and think that everybody will have to accept that. I always insist on that it's always very, very important because in your career, you will have to travel a lot. And, you know, be always very, very, very aware of the fact that very little things like that, you touching people, or you speaking loud, or you laughing loud, little things like that that you can think are not harmful actually can have a great impact about how people view you. Cross-cultural awareness permits strong and reliable connection with other scientists. Generally what you want in your career is to be able to know people from different continents and have very good relationships with them. This will not occur if you are culturally arrogant. You might want it or not, but sometimes if you're not culturally aware that, you know, these other scientific colleagues are different, I need to be very careful about the way I interact with them. If you're not aware of that, your inter-cultural relationships might not be very, very successful. It prepares you to compete efficiently for funds, for fellowships, for grants, etc. Generally, as you will evolve in your career, you will compete for, I don't know, international fellowship. This is an international fellowship. It's funded by, maybe we should acknowledge the funders that are NSF. No, not NSF. ICTP. ICTP, of course. APS, American Physical Society, IOP Institute of Physics, which is then in England and Britain, and the European Physical Society. And EPS. Yes, EPS. So you are here, most of you are here, owing to a funding that does not come from your country. So I suppose that, sorry, you had to do an application, etc., etc., etc. And this is already a first step in your career when you have to come out of your culture and compete because it was a competition. I know, personally, people wanted to come here. Yes, there were more than 300 applicants. So, and we had something like a little less than 50. So it was like 20, less than 20% success rate? Yes. Okay. So somehow that you did right, or do in your application, made the people who were doing this election say, okay, we want this person here and others not. So be aware of that, that generally when you will compete internationally, you need to understand how, at the international level, things work. It's very important. And it also allows you to enhance your communication skills with everyone, okay? When you just understand how you can interact with people from different culture, it enables you to build stronger relationship with them. I think this is obvious. So I have a quantum formulation of the problem. Generally, collaboration is going to be good and bad. It's some kind of like quantum superposition of both. And what you want, actually, is just to have a reduction to this eigenstate. And now the problem, because I'm sure that every scientist, of course, want to get along with all the other ones, the question is how do you get to this? And I write here. So open questions. And of course, there are other questions, so I will invite you to share your views and your ideas about this topic. From a general perspective, how do you think cross-cultural collaborations in science could be improved? In your opinion, how could young researchers from developing countries develop their collaboration skills? How could NOSA programs like the Hands-on School could be improved to meet their goals much more efficiently? Because of course the people who set up the school they have an idea. But they need your feedback to fine-tune things and make it better. Me, for example, is the third time that I come to the Hands-on, and I can see every time I come that there are new things that are added to make the program better and meet better your expectations. What are optimal strategies to develop south side collaborations? Much more importantly, are there key ideas related to this open forum that you think should be discussed or considered? Of course, this is not an exclusive set of questions. If you have other questions, and not necessarily questions, if you have ideas that you want to share or experiences that you want to share, please feel free, this is an open forum. Thank you. Floor is open for comments. Please state your name and then make your comment. I'm Shmaila, and I just have one question regarding this second comment we made, open question. Which comment, sorry? The open question. In your opinion, how young researchers from developing countries develop their collaboration skills? I have... My question is not about collaboration skills. My question is when, for example, there are different writing styles. The writings are different. In Asia, the writing style is mostly very long. In Europe, it's very concise. In America, it is different. So when you go into the international pool to apply for a funding, these things matter a lot. So how we can... How we are able to compete there? How we are able to... How we are able to manage that? How we are able to adjust that difference? Good. That's a good point. I would just share my personal experience about that. I remember I applied for a fellowship once to go to NASA. It was a NASA fellowship. And the first time I applied, I didn't get it. And I was very curious to ask my supervisor, my prospective supervisor why it didn't work. And it was... No one had bold enough. Your project was too conservative. We were sure that you could make it. So that's not what we wanted here. We wanted something much more risky. Which was different from what I was used to in Europe where if you say something that is too risky, then they are like, this is science fiction. We don't want to fund it. We want to fund something realistic. And I wrote a second project that was very risky that to be honest with you at the beginning I was not sure that I could make. And I got the fellowship and I went there and finally I could say what I was writing, what I wrote. So I would say depending on which country, what kind of fellowship you're talking about, depending on the country, depending on the program it's very important to adapt to what really you want to do. I would say it's the keyword to adapt. If you compete for American funds I think it's important to know exactly what kind of proposals generally they want to see. Maybe read one, two, three proposals that have been successful before. See a little bit the style, the level of competition, the level of risk because there's always risk in science. If you do science that is not risky at all, it's not research. It's just development. If you want to do research it means that it's not known and risk. But different cultures accept different parts. For example in Africa if you want to do something very risky you will not get funded because we are poor countries we still have to build roads, schools, hospitals. Yes we can give money to research but if it's to do something that is very likely to fail we don't have money for that. While much more advanced countries are much more willing to explore new ideas like in the example that I told you we want projects that are much more risky. So I will say adjust to the call the specific call that you're talking about and it's definitely a homework that you have to do. I just want to make a comment about what you said about looking at other successful proposals. I'm not sure how universal this is but in the US the National Science Foundation puts the one page summary of every successful program up on its web page so if you're answering a call for a specific proposal you can see how people wrote previous successful proposals. If such a thing is not available for the program you are applying to maybe you can find somebody else that you know within your social network who has been successful and ask them to see a copy of the proposal. I'll just add that the point that you made where you went and found out why you didn't get it that's very critical if you don't get something ask the person who decided why and don't be afraid to talk to these people they don't want to get bad proposals they don't want to get proposals they don't fund they want to be able to tell you what's going on and you should be willing to ask them. That is truly very very important sometimes people don't give you feedback which I don't like but most of the time people are willing to give you feedback and ask why I would have applied the second year trying to improve my initial project but not stealing the lines that they wanted so this is very important asking for feedback That's clear I wanted to address the same thing I also failed some scholarship and what not and I always asked why and usually it was some European findings and usually the answer was we don't give that information Come on That is true, I agree with you a lot of programs generally don't give feedback which I think is a bad thing but I actually think that feedback is important even when you are successful because sometimes it's useful for you to know why actually they like your project you want to know if it's because you wrote well you want to know if because the topic is important to them and it's true that a lot of funding agencies because they are bureaucratic very big things they don't like to address individual requests so if they have not already foreseen that they want to give feedback generally they just don't give it to you which is a problem I totally agree with you but try all the time if you can try to ask for feedback I wouldn't mind even like the most trivial feedback just what the referee say just what the referee say don't smell nice then okay next time no just some but yeah let me just add something about this too so what we are talking about here we sort of concentrated on funding but really this sort of thing happens everywhere when you have it really boils down to communication and something I think we were talking about in our professional development workshop and it was mentioned in Professor Swinney's talk you got to know your audience your audience is some funding agency in China or in the US or UK even within the US talking about funding different agencies have very different philosophies you have to know what your audience is it doesn't have to be about funding you are trying to submit to journals the journals they have their own particular approach take so really it's all you are at a conference you are communicating you have to know your audience that really is the key thing and to the extent that you can get information about that sometimes it's not so readily available often times it is and you try to incorporate that and this idea about if you fail that is an opportunity failing is actually good for you because it is an opportunity for you to grow to become a better you you learn something about yourself about what you can do better so don't look at it as I have to stop it as a new beginning I totally agree with that and as I say you see American point of view failure is good for you sir my name is Pauline I'm just curious what is the criteria to be selected in ICTP workshop applause asking for feedback so let me give you some what we look for that distinguished your application your workshops have their own way of judging I'll tell you what we look for what we look for was when you gave the reasons why you wanted to attend you actually said something specific about this workshop what we see some fraction of the people who apply are serial suppliers they basically just send in something that is very generic for a reason it didn't really connect very well with what the underlying ideas or themes of the workshop were but I would say everyone here made that effort and we recognize that and that's important ok so that's one thing we were not so much we looked at your background and looked at your prior work but actually that for us was less important because we wanted to bring people who were early in their career so they may not have a long most of you have a track some of you have a pretty extensive track record but most of you haven't had such really we were looking for we actually rejected a number of people who were very senior we have lots of publications but they've had their opportunity they're clearly established we wanted to go for people who were early enthusiastic we clearly saw this specifically as something that was important to advancing their career your career and that's what we looked for but again that's what we look for different audiences namely the different activity directors will look for something different but I'll just say that's what we had in mind I can't speak for the other activities I'll speak for what we the hands on schools you applied the lesson that you learned today as for feedback good question I'm Alejandro from Venezuela recommendation letters have the same value in different countries when you make an application I don't know in my experience yes there are some countries where it depends on the program sometimes you have 1,000 applications and everyone has more or less the same level for example for a PhD fellowship you are flooded with transcripts you don't have the time really to so you prefer to read the recommendation letters where people say you know what I know this person and generally the recommendation letter depends who writes it and how less general it is because sometimes people just write oh yes he's a good student I recommend him for you it's not helping you of course you will not write the recommendation letter but we want general in the recommendation letter to say something specific about you you can say you know what he may be not very good theoretically but he's very motivated he works very hard this for example is a genuine honest comment that I will keep in mind rather than someone just saying oh he's very bright he's just the best student that's my very personal experience so if when someone write recommendations later for you try to ask them to be specific be sure that you ask someone who really wants to write a recommendation letter for you because sometimes people just don't want this occurred even to me someone comes and you are like honestly you know that a good student I don't want to recommend you and generally the students take it bad well actually I'm helping them because if I feel forced to write a letter partially if I want to recommend him to someone that I know I cannot say that you're the brightest student when I know that he will value my opinion maybe give you the position and after that feel like I betrayed him so when you feel like someone doesn't want to write a letter for you don't force be sure that the person that writes the letter truly wants to do it let me just add one more thing and then I'll pass it on to the other hands on specifically again for this activity we actually solicited input from people who participated in this activity in the past and we actually know from the past participants there were some who were really outstanding and those in particular who we were were very impressive we listened to them very carefully and so some of you are here because in fact you receive strong recommendations from people who were here at this school in the past so you have the opportunity to have that influence in the future we're going to ask you when we have future schools to recommend people, colleagues and if you're very strong here we're going to listen to you very carefully because you're building your scientific reputation here right now in how you interact how you participate how much enthusiasm how it's your commitment all those sorts of things are really important and you're making the impression now so it's not just that you are you're applying you actually have influence now in other people's careers in that way so have that in mind I just wanted to add another thing about the recommendation letters the way the system works in the West the recommendation letter should be something confidential and it is the duty of the professors to write those letters if they know you if they say no then absolutely it means they don't have a good opinion they don't want to hurt you so you don't push that if they just look busy or they ask you to write the letter for them this is wrong you should really say no please I supply you with an email with information with my CV and please write the letter yourself it should be confidential and it should not be written by the candidate this undermines the system otherwise and like Mike was saying the faculty actually develop a reputation and after a while people know each other and know what a letter from a certain person means that's the way the system works so I wanted to add something that John was searching and that Pietro mentioned just in passing but if you want somebody to write an individualized letter for you it helps if you can give them make it easy for them and Pietro said it very quickly but if you're asking somebody for a recommendation letter email them a copy of your curriculum vita so that they know more about you or it just may remind them of things they knew about you but forgot so he's saying don't write the letter for them but give them enough information that helps them write a more personalized letter definitely I totally agree with that thank you my name is Shea Ma and I actually want to comment on the second question here how could young researchers from developing countries develop their collaboration skills actually this kind of activities melt the boundaries between cultures and even scientific fields so what I really want to say here if we or the ICTB can have something like a student chapter student chapters distributed in the world so that they act like notes related or linked to the ICTB I know that the ICTB is supporting conferences in many where especially developing countries but if there is a student chapter somewhere then this student chapter in any university usually captures the intention of undergrad and master students then can know something earlier about societies like ICTB OSA and these kind of scientific communities or societies and I found it really very helpful to find someone in my university who has or has like previous experience in the ICTB usually know from them about the schools and conferences where to apply it's the same kind of experience we look for when we try to apply somewhere so you I mean similar to to find how to apply and adapt your application seeing CV proposal and proposal and these kind of stuff so if we can have like a student chapter in the university ICTB student chapter you mean an ICTB student chapter yeah an ICTB student chapter in the country whatever the university is then they have something like an opportunity to invite one of the lecturers from the ICTB for one of their activities and then the students especially undergrad students will get know to this kind of collaborative skills thank you I will just say I will totally agree that now it's true that there's no ICTB official here but personally when I was much younger I would have appreciated that but she said something very important about student chapters generally whatever you do chemistry optics mechanics robotics whatever there is an international society that is established and generally they do have student chapters so I encourage you to be affiliated to one of the student chapters of the main domain that you the main society that belongs to your area and if there is not please say that you want to create one me for example I've been mandated by IEEE to create student chapters of photonics in Africa so we're actually looking for people that might talk with you if you want to create an IEEE chapter photonics in Egypt they look for young people and they have fellowships specific for them so out of the money they have they reserve some money for young people from developing countries and actually I can tell you they don't find applicants and it's just because there is a gap of information so the young people in developing countries don't know the opportunity exists and the societies they don't know how to reach people in developing countries so make that effort to belong to a student chapter or to create one if you can thank you for your talk my name is Muhammad I think it would be more better if there is some group projects in the hands on the school for example we're going to the sessions with already codes already setups and we just do just tiny part of the work but I think it would be better if there is some groups with different cultures different nations and we have to do the projects together for example somebody develop the code somebody develop the setup I think it would very beneficial for this school to communicate and I think it's better so I will mention that before Elisha we'll get to your comment I will mention that in fact this school is starting such a group collaborative project so for the first time there are three different sessions that actually separate from the morning sessions that we're just started as a pilot project as a collaboration between groups from different countries the session leaders and the assistants and we're trying to figure out exactly what that mechanism is how to make it sustainable how to have it be something that's not just for a day or a couple of days or two weeks but beyond the life of the school you can take it back to your home institution so some of the things you're learning here even with these small introductions everything is already canned in some sense these sort of introductions and new techniques those are things you can take back but we also appreciate that when you get home you have your advisors telling you that you need to do something everyone has demands on their time figuring out how to take something that you learn new and you're excited about and then when you return home you tell others about it but actually to sustain that that's really a big challenge so we are looking for we're trying new ideas it's a notion of group projects to something we're trying here we're going to see how it works and try to expand it in future schools but we appreciate your comment because it really is something that we want to have support you right now or for the next two weeks but something you can take home and carry with you beyond the rest of your careers thank you again I think it should can be done by for example we have a prize for posters but we can also define a prize for example for a good group project it's not mandatory it's already people can do this by it's own choice but it has a very good prize I think it's the motivation that people can communicate and collaborate and make something new I think it would be better for a hands-on school thank you for the suggestion thank you so much my name is Elisha one of the things I want to mention has already been covered by you because you said there will be collaborations and I would like the hands-on school to have something like a mentor mentee program for students so that a student can link up with one of the directors or the lecturers so that probably when you do your research in the future if you have papers you want to send out you can send it to your mentor he will look at it criticize it and send it back to you I think that will enhance a kind of longer span collaboration and I really want to appreciate the organizers of this school you guys are doing excellently I'm impressed apart from the fact that most of us are fully funded or partly funded it's great and when I go back to my country in Nigeria I will make sure to tell that it's possible to turn in application for this school thank you so much because when someone is doing something and you are not really sure if you are having an impact you may be discouraged but I want you to forge on you are on the right path thank you so you bring up a very important point about mentors this is really important in fact it's part of this project it's actually past participants so we've had something like 400 people who have passed through over the past 8 schools and some of those folks, as Prerna who is now a graduate is now a session leader and there are different past participants who are at different stages in their careers so what we are actually trying to do is to link up and so those of you who know you are in projects everyone has a mentor so the people here who are in this longer term projects are working on a longer term effort in collaboration in groups but there are people who are not here who are their mentors who are at their home institutions many of whom were past participants here so in fact your ideas it's very very important to build that network and in fact that's one of the things that we are trying to do we have the 50 folks here but you are not alone actually the people who have come before they are going to be the people who have come after you and what we are trying to build up is this community and in that community will be new people people who have been in a while and to build that network and to draw from that as the source of having mentors so you are in the early stages but as you progress you will be the mentor of someone at some point so just have that in mind so yes please spread the word but also if you go home and you've learned things you can directly try to take bits of what's happened here and actually apply them whether it's in a small group of your colleagues or in the department at whatever scale you want and you may find former people already there so one thing that we discuss a lot is whether from the point of view of building this network and community what online tools we can have at the moment we only have a very basic website and we probably don't want to use Facebook and we're still kind of looking for a way which would be more easy to say share documents somebody writes a draft, puts it up there others could comment and give feedback it would be great if we found the right low maintenance because everybody is short of time low maintenance and an easy way to maintain this community also online there is one quick thing I would like to say you know when I was a PhD student I was going to conferences and met people and today all of us are turning 40s and there are faculty that I know everywhere in the world I know people in Asia, in America, in Europe in Africa, most of them I met them one day in a conference and we just became I cannot even say friends because that's a big word but I knew them and all of us kind of evolved in our career right now you're coming from 20 countries of course you cannot keep track with everyone but if only you make, I don't know 3, 4, 5 friends, people that you know when you exchange emails and you keep in touch that's how you grow your network and it is very, very important you need to know that you need a network if your network is international, it's better if you know people in different continents, different countries it's important but these people when you meet them it's at conferences like this so the contacts that you are having right now if you see, you discuss with people and you have, sorry, affinities be sure that, you know, 10 years from now this will be something important you'll be, hey, you know what, I know someone I know a professor in India and I know a professor in the US I know a professor from Moldavia I know a professor from Nigeria and actually it will be a 10 year relationship and these are the relationships that are strong at our age, you meet people it's difficult to have very, very strong relationships because we're already adults and we have already our network you are building your academic network now the people with whom I have the closest relationships is because 10, 15 years ago all of us were PhD students and we were struggling to have our degree and now we have positions and we have the strongest relationship so value the fact that all of you are more or less at the same stage of your career and make contacts and I would, yeah, please very simple thing I would like to ask about any upcoming hands-on school it would be very useful to these students if you have that kind of professional workshop development sessions it would be helpful to tell us before we come here to bring every piece of useful material to our work because especially for the snapshot session we had I realized that I had many, many materials that I can use for this two minutes presentation which will come back to the time I need which are not with me just because I found it terribly to bring my material back from my email and this so I appreciate that but let me also say from the administration standpoint when we have 50 some odd of you are beat on by us to make sure where's your poster where's your poster if we're trying to keep track of your poster and your snapshots different people at different levels now you might say at some level issue it becomes we're one person or a few people so it's an issue of time so our hope was that when you presented your poster it contains all of the ideas which include there's the abstract so that forms the basis of your writing and the poster the materials there there's ample should be ample material from there to present a snapshot it's less about having the particulars I know you're thinking about having the details and have to have this graph or that graph not for a snapshot it's the key ideas the main points so just to say there's a balance we appreciate that you'd be nice to let you know all the details about everything upfront but at some point it's just a practical matter yes actually I had a comment saying something like if you can just put a diagram describing this and I just realized that I didn't put it I put all the details I thought that are enough but when you have some guidance saying if you just put this and you realize that you have it but you don't have it on your hand this is the point so I don't want to put everything I just want to be bitter fair enough so regarding networking I'm not sure Mike you may have to help me with this so we have a Facebook page that has been active at least so yes so no no for the 2013 one though there's still activity going on I mean like I know professor Erin Rarika she was what do you say posting messages and Eric Weeks was people who are in contact and we guys still occasionally say anyone publishes a paper there would be a link to it on archive or something so there's some sort of activity in terms of like call it social networking or academic networking it's going on so if anyone wants to take a lead and create a Facebook page for this hands on it would be really nice because you guys know each other really well you are part of post decisions you are part of hands on experiment so you meet almost every participant before you leave this conference right so it's not a bad idea to someone to take the lead and let me also add if you make such a group we would love to have that link that we would send it to future participants so they could look at your page the recommendations on how to prepare for the professional development workshops so that would that way we have more people involved it's not about us preparing everything and you know receiving if you become part of this families community and if you have an idea which is a great idea let's think out think of a way in which more people can get involved so that becomes that this becomes something that we can then provide for future participants but not one person is you know we're all doing this right we're building strengthening the community with all these ideas so it will be a useful platform for the participants so it's up to you whoever wants to take the lead so it will be a useful platform for the participants so it's up to you whoever wants to take the lead so groups and then better or more want to be available then I think if you are going to have a group well okay sure so we do we actually leave everything active the google drive and access your access stay you have access you know forever so but I would encourage those of you who want to let's say any sort of idea like this like increased communication community building if you get together talk among yourselves get together make some decisions you know I hear maybe google or gmail is not the best format but so come up with some solutions and we'd love to work with you on that that would be great to incorporate that and build that out strengthen the community I would like to say to make a comment that is a little bit off but I've stumbled to that problem a lot of times and I would like you to be aware of it be very careful about the way you write emails the people you don't know in academia I receive a lot of emails from you know young people and I'm sure that they don't mean any arm but when I receive an email from someone I don't know when I see sent from my iPhone it is just negative it's it's it's and of course it's not like I know that the people don't mean any arm but you should never forget that an email is a male an email is an electronic male it is a male partially when you write to someone you don't know it has to be formal be polite salutations the punctuation sentences starting with caps it is not a text message and sometimes the young people because you're in this, people send you message from the ipad and you will yeah, and you see it sent from my ipad I'm like I don't even know you If you don't have the time to sit down in a computer to send me an email then once again if I you, then it's different. I'm not saying that you cannot send emails through your iPad or iPhone or whatever. I'm not saying that. But when, for example, you apply for a position and it looks like you were just waiting the bus and you just hit send, it is not the best start for a relationship. Be careful the way you write your emails, the salutations. As I say, most of us are not native speakers, so it's a learning process. You go on Google, you will find a lot of template letters, like how to start a letter, how to send a letter, take one hour to kind of look that, send letters that are formal and good. And of course, when you know people, then you can send emails without saying hi, but without saying, without the formal salutations and the endings. But be very careful about that. I've received a lot of emails, particularly people coming from developing countries, and that are not native English speakers. And I know that they are very respectful people and they don't want to disrespect me or whatever. But be very careful about that. And I will just finish with this comment with one anecdote. One day I had an argument with a colleague because actually I sat down, I sent him a long email explaining a situation, and he replied with his iPad. And of course, the second problem when you reply with iPads or iPhones is that you tend to be short, which is it sometimes sounds snappy. So he replied with his period, boom. And I got that, I'm like, I sit down one hour to explain your situation, that's all what you have to say. And I got mad. And after that, I realized, again, I'm sorry, I just read your email in the phone and wanted to reply quickly to you. But still, we already had an argument because to me was disrespectful to me by replying without saying hi, without saying goodbye, without anything in two lines. So be very careful with that.  But when you send emails, particularly formal emails, if you want to send them using iPhones or whatever, be very careful to be sure that when they're sent, they're in proper form. I think we'll have to, we're running sort of over. And maybe we can continue these discussions informally. So let's thank Yanni. And actually thank you all for our great discussion. Thank you.


The final item of business today is the member's business debate on motion number 14914 in the name of Chick Brody on HGV Driver Shorties in Scotland. This debate will be concluded without any questions being put, and I would be grateful if those members who wish to speak in the debate could press the request to speak buttons now, please. I call on Chick Brody to open the debate. Seven minutes, Mr Brody. Thank you, Presiding Officer. May I firstly thank all those who have remained for the debate, and say how pleased I am that we're having the debate this evening. I'd like to, before I start, thank three particular people, Geoff Campbell, Martin Reid and Willie MacArthur, Willie who first raised the issue with me some 18, 20 months ago, and also with Jim Eadie. The road haulage sector in Scotland is a major part, a fundamental part of the Scottish economy. It's net contribution is over £5 billion, and it contributes more than 5.5 per cent of the total Scottish GVA. It is also a vital component in helping to deliver Scotland's exports, which in themselves are a key component of Scotland's economic strategy where we are on track to double our exports over the period 2012 to 2017. It fuels the retail market. It secures manufacturing output through delivery of raw materials and components to industry, and it also harnesses indigenous industries such as farming and forestry as an example. There are an estimated 300,000 HGV drivers in the UK of which Scotland has approximately 30,000 or should have, but it is estimated that driver shortage in Scotland may be as high as 11,000. That is not, as I said, just a Scottish problem, but a fairly large one, as far as we are concerned. That shortage is compounded by data in a recent study by Manpower, which found that those roles are among the five hardest roles to fill in the job market. Because of the demographics, 16 per cent of drivers are due to retire in the next four to five years, with only 1 per cent of drivers under the age of 25 and combined with an appallingly low recruitment rate. Approximately 1,500 drivers have to be recruited each year in Scotland to address the shortfall, and this ticking economic time bomb is there. Contributing to this fact is that the sector is heavily dominated by men, with only 1 per cent of women employed in the industry. Those overall statistics are new. That has been a problem that has just sprung up. It has been steadily worsening over the years. The sector skills council has estimated that at times there have been six vacancies for every one driver. Today, there is no doubt that we have a serious issue of driver shortages in Scotland. I believe that there are three main areas that we need to tackle. Again, I emphasise the support and information that I have had from the industry, and those who live with the challenge day in, day out. First, skills agencies. We need to ensure that our skills agencies understand the scale of the problem facing the sector and have a skills strategy to tackle the issue. There are also many sectors within the HGV sector such as forestry, livestock and fuel movement, all of which have unique skillsets and all of which contribute to the overall challenge. All drivers now require the compulsory certificate of personal competence, the CPC, and also must carry a driver qualification card, which involves 35 hours of periodic training every five years. The CPC training can cost up to £3,000 per driver, and we need to work together to ensure that those are properly funded and that drivers remain and grow with the industry. Following a specific meeting last month, that following months of prior discussions with SDS, SDS will be carrying out an extensive consultation with the sector to assess the scale of the problem, the skillsets that are required, and what are the barriers to recruitment. The invitation to tender for this consultation is now on the public contracts Scotland portal, which closes, believe it or not, tomorrow. The consultation involves talking to the Scottish road haulage group, the road haulage association, the freight trade association. It also involves talking to the highly significant food and drink industry and other key sectors in Scotland. We should have that skills strategy by the end of March. Modern apprentice schemes, career development and loan opportunities in working with existing training providers will all be principal features of the strategy. Secondly, the logistics academy. We need to ensure that there is a pipeline of drivers coming through into the industry. As I said, only 1 per cent of the industry is under the age of 25. The principles of developing Scotland's young workforce would be enshrined in the development of a logistics academy in Scotland. To that end, we will be encouraging discussions to take place between the skills agencies, the schools, colleges, university sectors to ensure that we have a robust pipeline of professional drivers. The drivers, training agencies and employers, the ones that I have met, are very ready to play their part. Mark McDonald's. I am grateful to member for giving way. In discussions that I have had with hauliers in my constituency, one of the issues that they have highlighted is that it can often be more expensive for them to obtain insurance for drivers under the age of 25, despite the fact that they will hold all of their required qualifications. One of the member would agree with me that insurance firms need to be part of this discussion as well. Check noting. Mr McDonnell is absolutely right, and that has been part of the conversation. I am sure that he will address that in his address, but the insurance companies have to be a bit more realistic in what they are trying to achieve in the long term. The road haulage association has been working alongside Jobcentre Plus in the initiative of Driving Britain's Future, which gives unemployed people first-hand experience of the industry. Presiding Officer, we require a rush of such initiatives. Lastly, there is the barriers to recruitment. Addressing the issue of driver shortage will require a multi-faceted approach. We have talked about the availability and funding of training and development of a logistics academy, but to underpin that, underpin those is the urgent requirement to remove the barriers to entry to the industry. We need to ensure that funding for training allows people from other industries to be upskilled in Mr McDonnell's very valid point regarding insurance requirements. In the current financial scenario and restrictions across the board, this sector, because of its general importance to all economic sectors, should be seen as such when it comes to funding. One significant possibility might be that those who are leaving the army and the navy and the air force and who have appropriate skills might be upskilled. We will be looking to discuss those opportunities with the Cabinet Secretary for Veterans. We also need to ensure that more women can enter the industry more easily. The development of a logistics academy can play a major part in that, as can the flexibility of working and working hours for all drivers. Lastly, Presiding Officer, I wish to close by commending, as I did at the beginning, those in the industry. I mentioned Geoff Campbell, Martin Reid and Willie MacArthur, and there were many more. I want to thank them for their part in addressing this issue and raising it, and I thank them for their guidance and knowledge shared with me over the many meetings that I have held with them. That is an issue that I am sure will be addressed fully over a period of time, and I am delighted that the SDS will be producing a skilled strategy by the end of March. The road holiday industry is, without doubt, a major contributor to Scotland's economy and helps to drive forward our exports. We should, and we must, and we will support it. I turn to the open debate speeches of four minutes, please, and I call Angus MacDonald to be followed by David Stewart. At the outset, I submit my apologies as I will be unable to stay in the chamber for the whole debate as I have a meeting to attend, and I am hosting the James Watt celebration in the Garden Lobby. I am grateful to Chick Brody for bringing this debate to the chamber. As I feel that it is important that this pressing issue remains on the Scottish Government's radar until we can see a steady stream of new entrants into the holiday industry. I am also grateful to my colleague Christian Allard for tabling his motion in Parliament during the first national lorry week last October, which highlighted the love, the lorry-seamed events organised by the Road-Hollage Association, which allowed pupils around the country to learn more about the holiday industry. I have, of course, raised this issue in the chamber myself on a number of occasions in the past two or three months. I am grateful to the transport minister and the Cabinet Secretary for Fair Work, Skills and Training for their responses. Local hauliers in my constituency have come to me to highlight their concerns regarding the very real problem of finding suitable drivers from home and even from abroad, with the Road-Hollage Association indicating that there is a shortage of 45,000 suitably qualified HGV licence holders in the UK. John Mitchell, the managing director of John Mitchell-Hollage in Grangemouth, employs more than 100 people and has a large fleet of trucks working around the clock. However, it is highlighted to me the difficulty of attracting new drivers to the industry. He came to me with a proposal that is now being actively discussed with Skills Development Scotland in which he would be willing to pay half the cost of training around 12 young drivers a year if SDS matched the funding. I am hopeful that something can come of that proposal, which seems a sensible way forward and an ideal solution towards helping to avoid a crisis. With the cost of training for a class 1 HGV-LGV licence at over £3,000, it is prohibitive for any future drivers, particularly if they are paying out their own pocket. A scheme that contributed a percentage of the costs of training drivers would, he believes, help to address the serious problem of declining numbers of drivers. In addition to meeting with Mitchell-Hollage, I also met with local livestock hauliers at Stewards of Bones in my constituency, who are also experiencing significant difficulty in attracting new drivers into the industry. Livestock haulage is a specialised work, and not everyone can drive a livestock transporter. Farmers and livestock hauliers have to be trained and passed tests to prove that they are competent. However, that has led to a shortage of qualified drivers with the average age of livestock hauliers, now believed to be 55. That is the figure for the general haulage industry as well. Despite high salaries, in some cases, in excess of £40,000 a year to key men, more are leaving the industry than joining. They are being enticed to other haulage jobs by competitive salaries and a generally cleaner environment with non-livestock haulage. None of the stress attached to moving livestock over long distances and trying to meet what many regard as impossible timetables are. As we know, livestock hauliers are required to observe working-time directive rules, which can be hard to do when working with auction marts, avatoires and, of course, the animals. Livestock hauliers can only drive a maximum of 90 hours in a fortnight or run the risk of hefty fines. Of course, during the hectic autumn sale or back-end season, there aren't enough livestock hauliers to move all the animals in the limited number of driving hours that are allowed. So much as I hate using the word, as I think it's overused in this chamber, I do feel we are facing a crisis, and that's the view throughout the haulage industry. As I mentioned earlier, figures from the Road Haulage Association show that the UK is currently 45,000 drivers short, 35,000 drivers are due to retire, and the next year, excluding those who have had to leave for medical reasons or have found another job, there are only 17,000 entering the industry annually. The RHA has called for the UK Treasury to make £100 million available for industry funding through a targeted, time-limited scheme, and hopefully the UK Government is listening and will progress that. However, in the meantime, the Scottish Government can play its part, and I was encouraged to receive confirmation from the Transport Minister before Christmas that Skills Development Scotland is exploding a range of options to address the driver of the industry. Could you draw ticklows, please? Indeed, we all recognise that the road freight industry is the lifeblood of Scotland and the UK's economy, so we almost play our part in ensuring that we literally keep Scotland moving. Thank you. I now call David Stewart to be followed by Joan McAlpine. I congratulate Chick Brody for securing tonight's very important debate. I share all of Chick Brody's conclusions that shortage of H3 drivers poses a very real and present threat to both the Scottish and, indeed, the UK economy. I have a particular interest as part of the ICI committee that we spent some time taking evidence on freight, which involved meeting a number of large hauliers. That is why I can echo Chick Brody's well-researched speech this evening. If you look around this chamber and the Parliament as a whole, most of the fact that what you can see from the glass in my hand to the chairs that we have here has been delivered by a lorry at some part of the journey to get here. In fact, more than 85 per cent of all goods that are bought in the UK are carried by a lorry at some stage in the supply chain. As previous members rightly said, the Road Hullage Association, which represents more than 8,000 haulage companies, states that there is a shortage between 45,000 to 50,000 drivers in the UK. Without which, if we do not get those drivers, the industry will grind quite literally to a halt. The statistics are very stark. According to the Office for National Statistics and the Labour Force Survey, 62 per cent of track drivers are 45 years or older, and the sector's average age is 53, 13 per cent of which are over 60. Most worrying for me, only 2 per cent of drivers are under the age of 25. That means, as we heard from Chick Brody earlier, that a fifth of the HGV driver workforce will reach retirement age in the next 10 years, and whilst there has been a drop of 45 per cent drop in the number of individuals obtaining the HGV licence in the past five years. In short, thousands of older drivers are leaving the industry, and there are too many barriers. Mark McDonald, who intervened earlier, was quite right to touch on the point of insurance. That has certainly been echoed to me in the hands of islands with the numerous college companies contacting me about this particular issue. That is a barrier preventing young people from replacing them. We have to do something about those barriers. The biggest issue is simply getting driving into the radar of school leavers. A Westminster equivalent of our cross-party groups described career guidance within the logistics sector, and I quote, as limited or non-existent. Back in 2009, the UK Government lowered the minimum age for driving a track from 21 to 18, but it seems that, in my experience, and I could be wrong in this, it only seems to be family firms that have taken advantage of this change. That is unsurprising, given that the cross-party group that I mentioned earlier said, and I quote, that insurance is the major cost to the industry. Prices are so high that companies are presented with a disincentive to invest in young people to calm drivers, so they are missing out on the formative years of a young person's career path. Furthermore, I have spoken to NISCRE training services that is a company that undertakes HV driver training in De Fries. The manager of the training facility said to my manager that the whole situation was, and I quote, a catch-22. There is funding available for apprenticeships geared towards those of appropriate age, but they have to be employed by a company before they are eligible for funding. What uses that is if a young person is wanting to enter the HV driving profession, but they are not employed? Where will you find the £3,000 to fund yourself through that HV driving and test? My colleague Rhoda Grant mentioned to me earlier that she was in touch with a Western Isles company that did not want to be named, who said that it is exactly the same problem and said that it is a huge disincentive to try to take on young people. I would highlight the good work that the Roadhouse Association is taking a lead on, and it is mentioned in the motion. The driving Britain's future, the new project with Jobs Centre Places, is an excellent initiative. In conclusion, I congratulate Chick Brody again for this. It is a very important issue for Scotland and for this Parliament. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I welcome the opportunity to speak today, and I am also grateful to my college Chick Brody MSP for bringing this debate to the chamber, and I congratulate him for that. The value of the logistics industry to Scotland's economy has already been highlighted. As our economy improves, driver shortages are likely to cause difficulties for Scotland's supply chains, so it is imperative that we need to address the skills gap now. The sector is extremely important to my region, in particular in South Scotland, and I would like to take the opportunity to recognise two free-space companies, Nithcree Training, which has already been mentioned and Currie European, for their efforts in encouraging more people to train as HGV drivers. I spoke to the leaders of both these companies in advance of the debate to get a first-hand view on what the challenges were and how to overcome them. In Nithcree Training, I spoke to the director, Elizabeth Campbell, to find out more about the shortages. She, as others have mentioned, highlighted the cost of HGV training, which can be prohibitive. In fact, she said that taking someone from scratch up to being trained in every kind of HGV and every kind of load could cost around £5,000 in both certificates and licences. People in this chamber will know that I am a great supporter of the arts as co-convener of the cross-party group on culture. However, I would be remiss if I did not mention that Elizabeth was rather frustrated at hearing of a friend's relative who had embarked on a college course in photography and was able to access £6,000 by the way of bursaries and grants. She found it very frustrating that there was absolutely nothing wrong with doing college courses in photography. It is great that the Government is obviously focused on college courses that have outcomes. However, here we have a skills gap in the HGV industry, and certainly others with Campbell at Nithcree Training feel rather frustrated that they could access this kind of package to training photography, but not as an HGV driver where there was a big gap. Over at Currie European, they have an absolutely excellent apprenticeship scheme for young people and take them from school and have a great relationship with the local schools. However, Tom Barry, the owner of Currie European, when I spoke to him about this, said that, while they are absolutely committed to their apprenticeship scheme and will remain committed to it, the cost of insurance was very prohibitive. They were looking at any assistance that they could get in that. Mr Barry also mentioned that a lot of their recruitment will come from people changing careers. What should be mentioned is that HGV driving is a good career. It suits many people—it suits everybody—but for many people it is very well paid, comparatively much higher than the average. However, to move into that career, you have to take 18 weeks off, as well as finding the funding, as I mentioned before, for the licence and the training. In addition, Mr Barry mentioned the burden of CPC, which is a UK Government issue. He also mentioned, which I thought was interesting, that the UK Government has taken away tax breaks for drivers who are on overnight journeys. That is not a huge amount of money, but it makes a big difference in terms of the attractiveness of the career. He was looking to put more pressure on the UK Government to address that particular issue. As others have said, it is affecting the economy as a whole. Mr Barry employs more than 300 people at Currie European. He said that, because of the shortages, he was having to turn work away. If he is turning work away and if he cannot, it means that the companies that need to get goods to people are not getting them to people in time. It has an effect on the whole economy, not just the road-haulage industry. For that reason, I am keen to highlight it in this important debate and hope that we can all work together to find a solution for the industry and the economy as a whole. I congratulate Chick Brody on securing today's important debate. It is very important, particularly for my region of the Highlands and Islands and, indeed, for the whole of Scotland. I also acknowledge the good work that Chick Brody and other members have done to raise the profile of the issue. I am pleased that I have been able to work on the subject as well. At the outset, I paid tribute to the first-class efforts of those involved in the Scottish road haulage group, particularly Geoff Campbell and William MacArthur, both of whom have vast practical experience in working in the haulage sector and who have such a passion for the industry. They have helped brief, interested MSPs, and I hope that they will continue to do so, as will the RHA, who has also done such good work. I commend all those HGV drivers who work so hard in Scotland to keep our shops, our businesses, our hospitals, our schools, our universities and all our other services supplied with goods. They transport agricultural livestock, timber, fish and farmed fish and allow companies to get their products to the market across Scotland, the UK and worldwide. As a livestock farmer myself for many years, I relied so heavily on that industry to move cattle and sheep to markets, often under very difficult conditions on small roads. They also helped the drivers who used to help with the loading and the unloading, and then at the end of the day they had to clean the lorries. I know how hard these people work. Their job is an unending, but they are often unsung heroes, and that is the point. They are the lifeblood of the whole economy in Scotland, and we often take them for granted, but we should be very grateful to them. I also know that the sector is continuing to face this winter's particular challenges of bad weather and flooding, which has caused transport disruption. The continuing ban on HDVs using the fourth road bridge has piled extra costs on hauliers. The blocking by landslide of the A83 on the Rest and Be Thankful has proved extra problems for hauliers, especially those from Kintyre. As Chick Brody has said, the contribution of haulage to Scotland's economy is massive, but the sector is facing significant problems in recruiting new drivers to the sector. That is vital for the long-term future. Over 38 per cent of drivers are aged 45 or over, so we need to be working to address the challenge now and with great urgency. In terms of young new entrants, I support the industry in calling for a structure to be in place to promote HDV driving to school pupils at secondary school before they are lost to other sectors. It is a great industry to come into. There is the particular difficulty that youngsters have to be 18 before they can gain their HDV licence. How do we then keep 16-year-old school leavers interested in the sector, and how can we support them in that period until they are 18 and can gain a licence? That is really important, I think. Funding for skills and training must also be flexible enough to support those in the 25-plus age group who many hauliers are seeking to attract as drivers, not least as employer's insurance premiums are less onerous than with the younger drivers. That includes those who are currently self-employed and who are seeking training to help upskill, retrain or transfer their skills. I want to see skills development Scotland offer as much support as possible to the self-employed in those categories, as well as to those who are unemployed. To conclude, Presiding Officer, I am delighted that this debate is taking place as the road haulage sector is intrinsically important to almost every aspect of the Scottish economy and we must ensure that it is underpinned by a sustainable number of drivers as we go forward. There is much work to be done to prevent a potential recruitment crisis and so I urge ministers to engage now with the Scottish road haulage group and the RHA and to respond to the specific suggestions and ideas that they have about tackling the challenges that we have heard about this evening. Many thanks. I now call Christian Allard to be followed by Mark McDonald. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I would like, first of all, to congratulate Chief Brodyd for getting cross-party support for emotion and I know he got a lot of help from many people along the way and some of them are listening to the debate tonight. It's an industry close to my heart, the road haulage industry. Yes, Presiding Officer, I came to this country 30 years ago to open a road haulage office in Blocken Road in Glasgow. I literally came to this country in a track and I was more than an office manager then as I took every opportunity to drive one of our 143 Scania on the small Highland roads to collect farm salmon for export and I was very pleased to contribute to the export effort from Scotland 30 years ago. You have to believe me, Presiding Officer, the Highland looked fantastic aboard a track putting 38 tonnes load of fresh fish but I did not employ women at the time and when we talk about recruitment it's so important that we concentrate on both genders and women drivers. There are a lot of them on the road and maybe we don't realise this. A lot of women are driving one specific type of track. If you don't believe me, next time you drive on Scotland Highway, have a look. Every, most of them, if not every, AGV horse boxes are driven by women so that really kills the myth that some women cannot drive tracks and of course there is television too. I don't know if you are watching on Channel 5. The Ice Road Trackers is a reality TV series where Lisa Kelly is an American tracker who has been featured in the television series and she was the only female tracker featured in the series but now Maya Sabre joined in the last season and prior to her appointment as a nice road tracker Kelly worked as a school bus driver and trained as a tracker because it looked interesting and it's very much an appealing for women to come into the industry. As a condition for driving absolutely not ideal close to the north pole for any track drivers, Lisa and Maya are the living proof that driving AGVs is something that can be easily mastered by women. There are now more and more women AGV drivers coming into this industry every day and choosing driving as a carrier AGV driver training centres and noticing an influx of women entering and wanting to train in category C and C and E licenses. The industry used to be mostly ruled by men however it is changing and many women are now involved behind the desk and behind the wheel. The number is rapidly increasing with the amount of opportunities out there in the industry as the moment that job vacancies in Scotland are quite a lot of them are being said and across the UK. Attitudes are changing also as women are fully qualified and have completed the same training as their male counterparts, they know what they are doing. The road haulage association is said to launch a new campaign and the resources centre to highlight the logistics work done by women and the opportunities available for women entering the sector. The campaign will be called She's RHA. She's RHS's primary aim is to encourage a national debate about the role of women in the sector, showcasing a variety of successful women and encouraging a forum within which female workers can swap experiences, information and achievement. She's RHA will be launched soon south of the border and I would like members and the minister to join me to encourage the road haulage association to bring the She's RHA campaign to Scotland as soon as possible. I'm sure that we'll receive cross-party support in this parliament. I was pleased to back the first ever National Lawry League week organised by the RHA as Angus Macleod reminded his chamber earlier. I received cross-party support under the motion on the 7th and Parliament and noted that the aim of National Lawry League is to raise the profile of the industry. There will be the Love's Lawry theme campaign again this year and I can tell you what I participated with Peter Dree in Aberdeen and as soon as somebody showed young school children how to work the horn it was impossible to hear ourselves so it's quite a very good event. So the voice of the industry needs to be heard and I thank you again for bringing it to our attention. This is an industry open to all genders, a vital industry and an industry for the future. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I congratulate my colleague Chick Brody on securing this debate. Listening to Christian Allard's speech when he was speaking about media depictions of female lorry drivers, I was struck while thinking about this debate and thinking about the issue around female lorry drivers growing up watching the cartoon Pigeon Street, where one of the main characters was a female long-distance lorry driver called Clara. Perhaps what we need is more media depictions of female drivers to encourage more women to consider that it is a career choice that is viable and open to them. More broadly, we need to ensure that where there are media portrayals in relation to the haulage industry, there are positive media portrayals because we know that in the past there have been some issues around negative portrayals and the impact that that can have on attracting people into the industry. I want to cover a couple of specific areas in this debate. The first is that it is around opportunities that can arise from difficulties in sectors. We know that the haulage industry is currently going through difficulties and I believe that it requires somewhere in the region of 1,500 drivers a year for the next 10 years in order to try and bridge the gap in terms of the skill shortages that have been identified. In my area and in Christian Allard's area, the oil and gas industry is currently experiencing a downturn with large numbers of individuals facing potential redundancy. In light of representations that have been made to me by haulage companies in my constituency, most notably I had a meeting with Jason Moyer of Dice Carriers and Bill Walker of William Walker Transport based in my constituency. In light of the discussions that I have had with them, coupled with the issues that are facing the offshore sector, I have written to the First Minister and asked whether the road haulage association should be considered for involvement in the energy jobs task force. I believe that, first and foremost, our efforts should be to prevent redundancy in the offshore sector wherever possible, but I also believe that, if there are going to be redundancies taking place, we should look at whether opportunities can arise as a result of that, which organisations such as the RHA and the haulage industry could potentially capitalise on in terms of people potentially reskilling and retraining. That brings me on to the point around training. I welcome the response that I received from the cabinet secretary, Roseanna Cunningham, when she wrote to me to advise that, where small businesses can apply for up to £5,000 towards employee training costs, it would refund up to 50 per cent of each employee training up to a maximum of £500. The difficulty that is being faced by a lot of haulage industry firms is that, in order for individuals to obtain employment, they need to have undertaken that training and passed their HGV tests prior to becoming employed by those companies. What we need to do—and it is an issue not just for the Scottish Government but the UK Government as well—is that we need to look at what support can be put in place where possible to support individuals, particularly individuals who are looking to reskill from another career to enter into the haulage industry if there is support that can be provided to enable them to do so. £3,000 to cover training is not an unsubstantial sum of money, particularly if an individual has either faced a redundancy or is looking to move from one career into another. That brings me to the point around the insurance point that I raised in the debate. I think that the insurance firms absolutely have to be part of this conversation. If an individual is qualified as an HGV driver, it should not matter whether they are 21 or 31, there should not be age-based discrimination in relation to insurance. If an individual has undertaken the required qualifications but runs the risk of potentially losing out on a position because it would cost more for the company to provide insurance for them, then that is something that needs to be addressed. I welcome the debate being brought by Chick Brody. I welcome the action that he has highlighted that is taking place. I think that there is more that perhaps needs to be done in terms of some organisations that need to be brought into the bigger tent around the discussion, but I am positive that there are opportunities out there. It is a question of whether they can be capitalised upon. Many thanks. Just before I call the minister to respond and for the record, I feel I must remind members that if they choose to participate in a member's debate, they should be available for the whole debate. In the rare circumstances where that is not possible, then it is courteous to notify the Presiding Officer in advance. Further, events in this building should not commence until the business of Parliament is concluded. I welcome this evening's debate. I am grateful to Chick Brody for securing the parliamentary time to highlight that important issue. Indeed, to all those members who have participated, there have been a number of important contributions and very reflective and thoughtful contributions made this evening. I would also like to echo Jamie McGregor's praise for HGV drivers individually. That is an important point to make. They work very hard to keep Scotland's economy moving. In this sector, as in so many other sectors, we hear once again of the hands-on experience of our member Christian Allar in terms of his former life. He has had so many former lives, but one of them is an HGV driver, so that adds to the debate. The Scottish Government recognises the important role of freight as an enabler for economic growth, so we must try to do what we can to match up the available opportunities in the road haulage sector with those who seek employment. Supporting individuals and employers to develop the necessary skills is an important aspect of the equation. Through Skills Development Scotland, we support people to do that through programmes such as the modern apprenticeship programme. That is where we can add value, helping employers by contributing towards the cost of training. For members' interests, there is already a freight logistics MA framework in this area. There is a public contribution available for four pathways across all age groups at levels 2 and 3. From 2011-12 through to quarter 2 in 2015-16, the total number of MAs here was 6,041. In an additional standalone category at the time, driving goods vehicles at a further 1,171 can be added to that total. The contribution, importantly, was available to those over 25. As far as the HGV licence acquisition and the EU driver certificate of professional competence are concerned, those matters are, indeed, as members have said, reserved to Westminster. The general provision of funding for that is not within our gift. At the same time, members will be aware that Job Centre Plus functions in Scotland are also reserved, but notwithstanding those constraints, there is, nonetheless, an important role here for Skills Development Scotland to establish, working collaboratively with industry, what the skills and training needs of the sector are, and to offer advice and guidance to individuals seeking to work in road college, as well as employers who need to recruit. I would strongly encourage any employer, particularly in this sector, but indeed in any other sector, to engage with Skills Development Scotland at the earliest stage possible to address their likely skills and training needs going forward. In that regard, SDS has worked with industry and partners to develop skills investment plans in a number of sectors. They set out a clear statement of the sector's needs, they highlight the key skills priorities and, importantly, they include an action plan to address the identified skills issues and thereby ensure that education and training aligns with future skills needs. As Chief Brodie has mentioned, Skills Development Scotland is now working with the Road College Association to consider the skills needs of HIV drivers and to establish a sound evidence base. In fact, SDS has issued its invitation to quote on 6 January this year in respect of research aimed at gathering that key information, and it is hoped that a skills focus plan of action will be in place by the end of March of this year. I hear particularly the pleas for the livestock haulage sector and I will ensure that those pleas, which were made very comprehensively, will be brought to the attention of SDS tomorrow in regard to the work that they are doing here. It has to be acknowledged that the shortage of skilled workers is not unique to the freight transport industry and hence employers looking to recruit HIV drivers are in competition with other employers. To be successful, therefore, employers need, I believe, to be proactive and have an attractive offering. In that respect, I welcome recent activity by the two freight trade associations, being the RHA and the Freight Transport Association, in their campaigns to increase visibility of career opportunities in the industry among young people and in particular among young women. As we have heard, there is poor gender balance in the road haulage sector, so there is a real opportunity for the sector together to consider how they attract more women so that they can widen the pool of talent available. I would be happy to meet with Christian Allard to discuss the RHA campaign to which he referred. I am perhaps too old to have seen the cartoon to which Mr MacDonald referred, but I think that he has the genesis of a very good idea there, because that is a means of communication. It is how you communicate the message that is very important. On the issue of young people, I would be speaking to a large company that uses haulage or is involved in haulage not so long ago. Anecdotally, they felt that the fact that a young person is not taken on fairly quickly after school is a problem, because young people are then walking with their feet and they are choosing to do something else, to look elsewhere to get their training and to earn a wage whilst they do so. That is a problem, but at the same time I recognise an issue raised by David Stewart and by Mark McDonald and others, that insurance is a big obstacle. It is a huge outlay, and work needs to be done with the insurance sector as well to see what reasonable steps can be taken in that regard. It is clear that there has been a lot of activity. The Scottish Government works well with the trade associations and also with the Scottish Freight and Logistics advisory group. Much debate has been taking place, including—again, it was a point that Chick Brody referred to—with respect to work to ensure that we do not lose what are, in essence, in principle transferable skills of our veterans in the area of HGV activity and in many other sectors. Keith Brown held a meeting in December 2015 with military representatives, and it was recognised that our veterans have a number of key skills and experience. The task at hand, therefore, going forward will be to identify both barriers and opportunities in facilitating access to employment for our veterans to ensure that their skillset is embraced and not lost to the Scottish economy. In conclusion, I would like to thank everyone who has participated in the debate. The Scottish Government recognises the importance of a skilled workforce and its contribution to supporting economic growth. It is beyond doubt that the Scottish economy needs efficient, sustainable and robust freight transport in order to meet growing customer demands and to compete effectively in a global economy. I am confident that, through the Scottish Government's well-established partnership with freight stakeholders and others, we can work together, as stressed by Joan McAlpine, working collaboratively together to address the challenges that lie ahead, but, in addressing those challenges, we wish to make Scotland a place where businesses can indeed grow and flourish. That concludes Czech Brody's debate at HGV Driver Shortages in Scotland, and I now close this meeting of Parliament.