TWELVE IN SEARCH OF A BETTER LIFE
Comment by Royal Society CEO Dr Steve Thompson
Steve.Thompson@rsnz.org

The latest issue of the New Zealand Science Review contains a fascinating set of articles on policy options for science and technology. The twelve policy authors come from backgrounds of working in MoRST, FRST and the CRIs, so some significant points of view from the innovation gurus, other researchers and the private sector are missing. The twelve show a remarkable degree of convergence in their policy prescriptions for New Zealand.

Viewed from aloft, the public sees science as specialist and self-interested or, as the prime minister apparently mused, evil and boring! Most authors blamed uncertainty and lack of direction in science policy. They advocated much closer alignment between MoRST and FRST, even to the extent of merging them. More core funding and less contestability would combat uncertainty. MoRST saw policy direction as stemming from government's innovation strategy, while others saw it as involving scientists in priority setting, and on the boards of CRIs.

Current contestability is seen as leading to high volatility, fragmentation, and abrupt changes in research direction. One writer suggested simplifying down to four main funds (university research, sectoral research, value creation, and technology development), while others wanted to increase core funding and put more money into all forms of research. Career fragility was a major concern, with more stable funding seen as one solution. Others advocated closer university/CRI linkages, and devolving more decisions from FRST (which had become a de facto employer of scientists) back to research providers.

While there was remarkable concurrence, the list above is depressing. It tinkers with structure, but it won't make the kiwi fly. How can we make our minds soar above the mundane? Where are our imaginations?

Science funding and the Open Letter - PSA Noticeboard December 2003

Richard Wagstaff (national secretary) Paula Scholes and Craig Ross (from the national science committee), Malcolm Blair, (organiser for the science sector) and Sue O'Shea (PSA policy advisor) met with Minister Pete Hodgson on 27 November to discuss our concerns about the current funding environment and the implications for CRI-based science capability, as signalled in MoRST's i3 programme.

While the Minister signalled a move towards a more "stability" focussed funding mechanism, for example, a performance-based funding model, it is likely that significant changes will not be implemented until the 2005 funding round.

A feedback loop at senior management level is currently being implemented which will progress the move to greater stability of funding and perhaps avoid crises in some CRIs in the next round, but these changes will be "modest".

PSA is disappointed with the slowness of implementation of the i3 strategy, which identified the need to look for more stable ways to fund capability. In the meantime, science research capability within the CRIs is being further eroded.

We will continue to campaign to ensure science research capability is maintained.  We will also be seeking to be consulted on any changes to the funding process.

UNDULATING SCIENCE: A VIEW FROM ACROSS THE WAVES
Guest comment on last week's Editorial
John Maindonald,  ANU, Canberra

The change to CRIs fractured a science effort that was modest by international standards. First, a rigid cost-shop funding model was imposed that discouraged cooperation across cost-shop boundaries and created severe difficulty for those whose minds and energies ranged across multiple areas of application, and who were often the vehicles for cross-fertilization. Next, the whole set-up was split into nine parts, separated by walls that were at least of timber construction and often seemed like concrete. There was a huge and wasteful multiplication of management structures and scientific resources. 

The system was bad when it was created. It, and the mindsets that created it, surely now offer almost insuperable barriers to the new ways of doing science that were desirable in 1992 and are mandatory in 2003. It is ironic that the specialists whose skills crossed disciplinary boundaries, many of whom did not fare well in the change to CRIs, now find unprecedented demand for their skills. Particularly in mind here are computer-oriented mathematical and statistical specialists, and the new librarians of the era of the internet. (There has been a remarkable transformation, in the past decade, in the work of skilled librarians in the two Australian universities of which I have had direct experience.)

Incidentally, you must be aware of the UK e-science initiative, one major component of which is the use of the internet and of internet-based resources to foster cooperation, nationally and internationally, across different groups of disciplinary specialists. (http://www.e-science.clrc.ac.uk/web)

I agree that Centres of Research Excellence are the way to go. To be effective, there must be a large amount of freedom for them to move where the scientific spirit takes them. I wonder how much CRIs have done, since I left New Zealand in 1996, to foster the training and development and retention of the computer-oriented specialists in mathematical and statistical applications who should be taking a major role in such centres.

As for myself, I am glad indeed that, late in my career, I moved from the CRI system. Professionally, I have come to life. I have had a huge lot of fun, dabbling in everything from epidemiology and 19th century wage movements to genomics. In my experience at ANU, there has been a remarkable absence of barriers to those from different areas of the University who wish to work co-operatively.