By Richard Braddell
WELLINGTON - Crown research institutes and other recipients of $600 million in Government research funding have been put on notice to make themselves more relevant to business.
The warning, conveyed in the knowledge economy package unveiled by the Government yesterday, was clearly linked to the performance of the $300 million Public Good Science Fund, which has directed the majority of its grants towards primary sector research by crown research institutes.
The Government now sees Technology New Zealand, the fund's offshoot with a record of successful high-tech research collaborations with business, as a key part of its research and development sponsorship.
"We've agreed in principle to double the funding for it and to change its rules. We think it's a very good driver for getting the ideas out of the crown research institutes and into business and vice versa," the Minister for Enterprise and Commerce, Max Bradford, said yesterday.
But Mr Bradford said the Government was spending large amounts on what amounted to commodity research, and the country was not getting adequate returns.
Earlier this year, the head of Technology New Zealand, John Manning, was suspended, then quit, after crown research institute complaints about remarks that were mirrored by Mr Bradford yesterday.
Noting that there had been "staff-related matters," Mr Bradford said the agency had been "brilliantly successful" and he was looking to make the concept even better.
Bradford warns research institutes
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