Lucy Stewart: New Zealand Association of Scientists Co-President on the changes to the science sector

There’s scepticism over the Government's major changes to the science sector. 

Seven crown research institutes be merged into three public research organisations and another is also being created to focus on AI and advanced technology. 

Callaghan Innovation will close, with 355 jobs impacted. 

The moves follow a months-long review of the science sector led by Sir Peter Gluckman. 

New Zealand Association of Scientists Co-President Lucy Stewart told Francesca Rudkin that the science sector has been desperately underfunded for 30 or 40 years, which is emphasised in the report. 

She says the idea they’re going to have champagne science on a beer budget just by merging some organisations is not particularly realistic.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The government's announced an overhaul of seven Crown Research institutes.
They'll be merged into three public research organizations and a
fourth PROS will be established to focus on advanced technology.
Government agency Callahan Innovation will shut down as part of
the reforms. Using The Association of Scientists co president, doctor
Lucy Stewart joins me. Now, thanks for your time, Lucy.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Good to be here.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Is this a good idea?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
So broadly speaking, the idea of merging the ciris is
a good idea. People have known for a really long
time that the is really unhealthy competition between the curs
because they kind of have commercial requirements to make money
and they have some mobile apps, so they've been competing
for resources. So I think this will be beneficial in disregard. However,
without knowing you know, quite a lot more detail, this

(00:47):
could just end up being shuffling the deckcha on the Titanic,
given the state the science system is currently in.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Right, so potentially bitter value for money, but we're not
entirely sure what you might get out of it.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Well, that is the funny thing I want to focus on,
because that's something that came up a lot in the
government's announcement, but the reality is and so Peter Blackman's
report that was released yesterday emphasizes this. Our science system
has been desperately underfunded for thirty or forty years now.
So the idea that we're going to have sort of
champagne science on to be a budget by just you know,

(01:22):
merging some organizations to get better value for money is
not particularly realistic.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
What were these seven institutes doing that were so valuable?

Speaker 2 (01:32):
So these seven and students do a range of science.
You've got Genius for example, does earth science, so they're
studying things like you know, earthquakes and tsunamis. You've got
kneewhere doing marine science. Scion look at forestry, ag research
and plant and food are both looking at sort of productions,

(01:53):
so a research and more focused on pastoral and clime
and food and more focused on you know, plants and foods,
aut culture and that all of them are doing a
range of science between stuff that's commercial, you know, commercially
valuable for industries we have in New Zealand and also
public good science. So that's science where you know it
doesn't necessarily creative products you can sell, but we still

(02:16):
need to do it for the benefit of our country.
So if you think particularly about stuff like natural disasters,
studying natural disasters doesn't necessarily create a product you can sell,
but it gives this information that's really important in reducing
our risks so that when there is a natural disaster
there's less damage and less loss of life.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
So, Lucy, you're concerned that there's too much of a
sort of a focus on the commercial benefits and the
commercializations of science and technology rather than that you know,
providing good public public goods science.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah, you have to have a balance. So I think
Sir Peter Gleigman's report is that, you know, it's really
well considered and it kind of establishes there's four different
main areas of government funded science. There's public good science,
like we'll discuss, there's science that you know, just generates knowledge,
and that science where we don't you know, really know

(03:11):
what it's going to do, but having that knowledge leads
to ideas that turn into public good science or commercial
science down the line. And you also have science which
is directly informing policy. So that's when the government kind
of knows things that's doing and they need they need
work done to support the policy work they're doing. So

(03:31):
that's four different areas of science, and this announcement focuses
entirely on the last one, the commercial or is the
report called it exploitable science, and it really feels like
it's at the expense of the other three. But they're
all important and valuable.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
Okay, so will we still produce quality science this way?

Speaker 2 (03:51):
We will produce quality science this way if we are
focused on growing a well funded science system that supports
good scientists to do their work. And what we know
is that over the last year we've lost around five
hundred jobs from the government science system. So really I'm
kind of really surprised to see the government in this announcement.
They're saying things like, you want to attract skilled people

(04:14):
to New Zealand. Well, if we could stop making skilled
people redundant and having them leave New Zealand first, that
would be a fantastic start.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
Doctor Lucy Stewart, thanks for your thoughts this moment. For
more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to
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