Competition gives way to research co-operation

By SIMON COLLINS

The director of the Institute of Public Policy at the Auckland University of Technology, Ian Shirley, tells a story which illustrates what is wrong with New Zealand's research system.

After trying for several years, he had finally pieced together, from six universities, a group of experts on family policy. They were "the best people in the country who had done work in that area."

"One of our major problems in New Zealand is that we don't have good databases, so we decided we needed a much better database," he says.

After much swapping of emails around the country, the group agreed on a joint submission to the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology to fund a national project to prepare the database.

But just when the submission was about to go off a few months ago, every single one of those researchers came back to Shirley with a problem: "Their managers told them they also had to put in competitive bids!"

In other words, their universities were so desperate for money that they were prepared to torpedo a co-operative national project that could have helped to reduce family violence, by nakedly grabbing for the research funding individually.

"I pulled back," Shirley says. Rather than see the money frittered away on isolated local projects, he asked everyone in the group to drop the whole idea.

But this kind of rivalry may be about to end. This week's Catching the Knowledge Wave conference will discuss developing a research system which is both more co-operative and more closely linked to the country's needs.

In fact, changes are already afoot.

In March, the Tertiary Education Advisory Commission recommended a shift away from paying tertiary education institutions purely on the basis of how many students they attract, towards a system that will encourage them to specialise in their areas of excellence.

In May, the Budget provided $2 million this year, rising to $13.6 million a year from 2004, for "centres of research excellence" which will be based in educational institutions but which will be "primarily inter-institutional networks."

Then last month, the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology quietly published on its website a discussion paper on funding "research consortiums" which could include universities, research institutes and business.

"The foundation wants to see its research used for the benefit of NZ," the paper says.

"It is interested in consortia arrangements that generate significant downstream spillovers, such as the diffusion of knowledge and know-how to firms and other social benefits."

The idea has high-level support. When Auckland University engineering professors Peter Brothers and Debes Bhattacharyya wrote a paper late last year on how a research consortium could work, Prime Minister Helen Clark heard about it and asked for a copy.

"We didn't think it could be true - but then she sent us a reminder earlier this year. So we did send her a copy, and now government documents are coming out that are very similar," says Bhattacharyya.

When the Prime Minister co-chairs the Knowledge Wave conference, 'innovation and creativity' will be one of five themes in play. Look for much more emphasis on co-operative research efforts in its wake.

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