By YOKE HAR LEE
The Foundation for Research, Science and Technology has revamped its management structure, modelling itself like an investment bank to handle new science funding.
Four units have been created - policy, portfolio management, investment operations and corporate development - the heads of which will report to chief executive Dr Steve Thompson.
Previously, the foundation had managers for the Public Good Science Fund, Technology New Zealand, policy and evaluation, someone overlooking fellowship schemes and others dealing with administration and finance.
Each of those groups designed, evaluated and delivered its own products.
Under the new structure, the portfolio group will design all the foundation's programmes and the investment group will handle their delivery.
"This will enable us to bring various schemes that we have in closer harmony, instead of operating as individual units," said Dr Thompson.
"We are structuring to deliver those; to position ourselves more as an investment house than we were before, to deal with certain internal changes that the Government and board want us to deal with."
The restructuring was necessary to cope with initiatives designed by the former National Government.
Dr Thompson said the foundation would also be geared to meet any policy changes made by the new Government.
"So instead of delivering three quite distinct things, we might be delivering eight or nine close neighbouring things.
"In that situation, it is more likely a client will come to us with a good idea and we'll say, 'We think we can help you out. You need a bit of this and a bit of that, with fellowships thrown in. So we will help you with a mix of things.'
"The model we are taking on is very similar to the typical model that an investment bank uses," he said.
The foundation administered close to $290 million in research funding as at June 1998.
Last year, it won the bid to dish out $36 million to be made available for the New Economy Research Fund, as well as scholarships under National's Bright Future programme.
The hunt is on for three of the four new positions. The head of investment operations will be Colin Webb, who now manages the Public Good Science Fund (PGSF).
Technology New Zealand, one of the foundation's most successful schemes, had meant to look for a new manager after the departure of John Manning.
It now has a transitional manager on contract for a few months.
When the new structure is fully in place, there will be no need for a Technology NZ manager.
The foundation will take over Technology's office in Auckland.
Board member Maxine Simmons said the new structure was aimed at providing a seamless, integrated approach to science funding, linking the users to the science provider groups.
"You would agree, it has all been quite separate - Tech NZ has really been integrating mainly with the companies; you've got the PGSF, which is very much linked to the science providers.
"There really hasn't been a mechanism, a seamless structure, to link research to markets early in the process."
Maxine Simmons said new ideas needed such links.
However, it was important that the new structure enhanced the good parts of existing programmes, such as those delivered by Technology.
John Cunningham, a member of Technology's advisory committee, said he hoped the new structure would make the funding system more accessible to industry.
"What I would like to see is greater cohesion between industries and science providers.
"If the changes to the foundation's management structure helps promote that, it is a good thing. Otherwise it would be just an internal change."
Science group shakes structure
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.