Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Lucy Stewart: New Zealand Association of Scientists Co-President on the changes to the science sector

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Lucy Stewart: New Zealand Association of Scientists Co-President on the changes to the science sector · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The government's announced an overhaul of seven Crown Research institutes.
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  Speaker 1: They'll be merged into three public research organizations and a
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  Speaker 1: fourth PROS will be established to focus on advanced technology.
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  Speaker 1: Government agency Callahan Innovation will shut down as part of
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  Speaker 1: the reforms. Using The Association of Scientists co president, doctor
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  Speaker 1: Lucy Stewart joins me. Now, thanks for your time, Lucy.
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  Speaker 2: Good to be here.
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  Speaker 1: Is this a good idea?
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  Speaker 2: So broadly speaking, the idea of merging the ciris is
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  Speaker 2: a good idea. People have known for a really long
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  Speaker 2: time that the is really unhealthy competition between the curs
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  Speaker 2: because they kind of have commercial requirements to make money
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  Speaker 2: and they have some mobile apps, so they've been competing
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  Speaker 2: for resources. So I think this will be beneficial in disregard. However,
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  Speaker 2: without knowing you know, quite a lot more detail, this
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  Speaker 2: could just end up being shuffling the deckcha on the Titanic,
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  Speaker 2: given the state the science system is currently in.
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  Speaker 1: Right, so potentially bitter value for money, but we're not
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  Speaker 1: entirely sure what you might get out of it.
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  Speaker 2: Well, that is the funny thing I want to focus on,
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  Speaker 2: because that's something that came up a lot in the
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  Speaker 2: government's announcement, but the reality is and so Peter Blackman's
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  Speaker 2: report that was released yesterday emphasizes this. Our science system
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  Speaker 2: has been desperately underfunded for thirty or forty years now.
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  Speaker 2: So the idea that we're going to have sort of
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  Speaker 2: champagne science on to be a budget by just you know,
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  Speaker 2: merging some organizations to get better value for money is
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  Speaker 2: not particularly realistic.
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  Speaker 1: What were these seven institutes doing that were so valuable?
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  Speaker 2: So these seven and students do a range of science.
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  Speaker 2: You've got Genius for example, does earth science, so they're
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  Speaker 2: studying things like you know, earthquakes and tsunamis. You've got
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  Speaker 2: kneewhere doing marine science. Scion look at forestry, ag research
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  Speaker 2: and plant and food are both looking at sort of productions,
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  Speaker 2: so a research and more focused on pastoral and clime
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  Speaker 2: and food and more focused on you know, plants and foods,
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  Speaker 2: aut culture and that all of them are doing a
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  Speaker 2: range of science between stuff that's commercial, you know, commercially
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  Speaker 2: valuable for industries we have in New Zealand and also
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  Speaker 2: public good science. So that's science where you know it
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  Speaker 2: doesn't necessarily creative products you can sell, but we still
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  Speaker 2: need to do it for the benefit of our country.
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  Speaker 2: So if you think particularly about stuff like natural disasters,
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  Speaker 2: studying natural disasters doesn't necessarily create a product you can sell,
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  Speaker 2: but it gives this information that's really important in reducing
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  Speaker 2: our risks so that when there is a natural disaster
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  Speaker 2: there's less damage and less loss of life.
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  Speaker 1: So, Lucy, you're concerned that there's too much of a
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  Speaker 1: sort of a focus on the commercial benefits and the
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  Speaker 1: commercializations of science and technology rather than that you know,
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  Speaker 1: providing good public public goods science.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to have a balance. So I think
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  Speaker 2: Sir Peter Gleigman's report is that, you know, it's really
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  Speaker 2: well considered and it kind of establishes there's four different
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  Speaker 2: main areas of government funded science. There's public good science,
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  Speaker 2: like we'll discuss, there's science that you know, just generates knowledge,
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  Speaker 2: and that science where we don't you know, really know
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  Speaker 2: what it's going to do, but having that knowledge leads
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  Speaker 2: to ideas that turn into public good science or commercial
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  Speaker 2: science down the line. And you also have science which
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  Speaker 2: is directly informing policy. So that's when the government kind
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  Speaker 2: of knows things that's doing and they need they need
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  Speaker 2: work done to support the policy work they're doing. So
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  Speaker 2: that's four different areas of science, and this announcement focuses
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  Speaker 2: entirely on the last one, the commercial or is the
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  Speaker 2: report called it exploitable science, and it really feels like
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  Speaker 2: it's at the expense of the other three. But they're
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  Speaker 2: all important and valuable.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so will we still produce quality science this way?
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  Speaker 2: We will produce quality science this way if we are
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  Speaker 2: focused on growing a well funded science system that supports
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  Speaker 2: good scientists to do their work. And what we know
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  Speaker 2: is that over the last year we've lost around five
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  Speaker 2: hundred jobs from the government science system. So really I'm
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  Speaker 2: kind of really surprised to see the government in this announcement.
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  Speaker 2: They're saying things like, you want to attract skilled people
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  Speaker 2: to New Zealand. Well, if we could stop making skilled
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  Speaker 2: people redundant and having them leave New Zealand first, that
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  Speaker 2: would be a fantastic start.
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  Speaker 1: Doctor Lucy Stewart, thanks for your thoughts this moment. For
• 4:24
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• 4:27
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• 4:31
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