Research jobs lost in uni restructuring

Debes Bhattacharyya. Photo / Paul Estcourt

A row has developed at the University of Auckland over the future of a research facility set up to help boost the $2.6 billion plastics industry.

Sources say five staff members, including highly skilled researchers, will have their jobs terminated at the Plastics Centre of Excellence (PCOE) on December 31.

The centre's establishment was based on the idea that industry would engage with it to develop intellectual property that could be patented, licensed and sold.

The university says the facility, based at its Tamaki Campus and officially opened in 2008 after receiving up to $5 million in Government funding, will continue that function and is simply being restructured.

But one of the researchers set to lose his job through the restructuring, who did not want to be named, says the university's aim is to turn the PCOE into a teaching facility in which the commercial research it was set up to conduct will no longer be carried out.

The university says the plastics industry has not contributed sufficient funding to the centre, so its costs need to be cut back.

Plastics companies began disengaging with the PCOE this year after the Faculty of Engineering assumed accountability for the centre from Auckland Uniservices - the commercial research and development arm of the institution, the researcher said.

He said the current director, Debes Bhattacharyya, was an academic.

Michael Davies, dean of the Faculty of Engineering, said the university was committed to the PCOE's continued operation as both a research and teaching facility.

"In future [research] staff will be engaged on contract as required while day-to-day management will be shared with the Centre for Advanced Composite Materials [another research facility] on the same premises," Davies said.

Peter Plimmer, a consultant in polymer technology to the PCOE, said the plastics industry was unlikely to engage with the facility following the loss of experienced staff members.

An email sent to Davies on December 7 by Robin Martin, chief executive of Plastics New Zealand, was leaked to the Business Herald and highlights his concerns about the situation.

"What is happening at the PCOE at the moment is extremely worrying," wrote Martin.

"All major projects are effectively on hold, and in jeopardy ... There is in the vicinity of $300,000 worth of research projects for the next six to 12 months which appear likely to be lost."

But when asked by the Business Herald about the commercial research that would take place at the centre in the future, Davies did not acknowledge the projects Martin makes reference to in his email.

Instead, he said research undertaken would depend on topics proposed and funded by the plastics industry and other sources.

Martin said it was "absolutely vital" that the PCOE continued to operate in its originally intended capacity.

The centre is a co-operative venture between the University of Auckland, Plastics New Zealand and the Tertiary Education Commission,, a Government department which provided the $5 million in funding in the form of a suspensory loan.

Plastics New Zealand also received $766,000 from TechNZ, a Government technology funding scheme, to carry out two projects at the facility.

Two major pieces of intellectual property have been developed at the centre since it officially opened in 2008 - a tear-resistant Poly(lactic acid) and a replacement for PVC.