Aberdeen University is set to play a leading role in strengthening Irish-Scottish relations by hosting the first of a series of top-level meetings between politicians, academics and civil servants. Irish premier Bertie Ahern has announced pilot funding to set up an annual Scottish-Irish forum, to be managed by Aberdeen's recently established Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies. The forum was proposed by the institute's director, Tom Devine, and Dan Mulhall, Irish consul general in Scotland. It will be a platform for discussing the future development on Scottish-Irish links in the context of devolution and the British-Irish Council, or Council of the Isles, to be set up as part of the Good Friday Agreement.