Relative to the likes of Brisbane, Australia; Austin, the United States; and Copenhagen, Denmark; Auckland is not doing enough to meet its ‘competitive challenges’.
Aucklanders are quick to celebrate sporting success when we have it – whether it be the Blues or Auckland FC.
But while our teams generally thrive under pressure and adapt to win, the same cannot be said for our city’s approach to fostering innovation and economic growth.
The benchmarking exercises carried out by the Committee for Auckland over the past two years show the city ranks poorly relative to its nine benchmarking cousins on issues of innovation, connection, and knowledge. It’s time to ask: why are we falling behind in the competitions that really shape our future?
Lists of the most innovative countries are dominated by small, advanced, economies including Finland, Denmark, Ireland, and Singapore. This is reflected in their economic performance – they hold their share of GDP despite much changing around them.
But New Zealand does not even rank in such lists – we remain a disappointing outlier. If we look in detail at these countries, and even at much larger countries including China and the United States, it is cities that are the core units of innovation.
Auckland has the substrate to do much better. We have three universities, several Crown Research Institutes (CRIs), the largest concentration of researchers in the country, we are the business capital of New Zealand, and we have some highly innovative global companies including the superstar Rocket Lab.
As New Zealand’s global gateway, home to a diverse population nearing two million, economists think Auckland should be punching above its weight in productivity. Yet, despite this potential, we’re falling short.
If Auckland fails to show greater productivity as a hub of innovation, New Zealand will fail.
We can blame the Government – it does not invest as much as other countries in higher education, research and innovation. But that is an inadequate excuse.
In other countries business, academia, and city leaders work hard and closely, making the case to government to support an innovation ecosystem which cannot occur without knowledge and connection – the other domains on which benchmarking shows we rank poorly.
If Auckland fails to show greater productivity as a hub of innovation, New Zealand will fail.
When comparing cities of innovation such as Geneva, Copenhagen, or Helsinki, our missing connectivity is immediately apparent.
Civic leaders value academic and business partners, business partners advocate for universities and technology infrastructures, universities reach out for partnerships and understand their critical role in human capital development and in creating a vibrant, globally relevant, intellectual and innovative culture.
But after focusing on the issues of science and innovation for more than 20 years, and despite my general scepticism for selective benchmarking, the conclusions feel correct.
We have too many local barriers. Our civic leaders focus on roads and infrastructure – not on productivity and innovation.
Our innovation agency is being constrained. Culture, entrepreneurship and creativity matter.
Business stays talking to business, academia is not as connected to the city as it could be and collective approaches to shifting the national understanding of Auckland’s role are not obvious.
Our impressive cultural assets are isolated from our potential in science-based innovation.
Sir Peter Gluckman is the director of Koi Tū: the Centre for Informed Futures. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Do we really celebrate our successes?
Did we really understand that the America’s Cup is actually a world-class competition in engineering?
When Emirates Team New Zealand was based here, we had one of the globally most exciting research groups in reinforcement AI working to support the Cup which could have been leveraged in something much more.
In downtown Auckland we have a globally significant research and development centre for Apple, built out of intellectual property that arose decades ago in the University of Auckland.
We have successful gaming, MedTech and Fintech sectors. We have isolated innovation pockets, but they are not integrated, packaged, and promoted.
There are green shoots, but the overall strategy is random and largely isolated from policy development – in marked contrast to cities elsewhere.
The lack of co-ordination, advocacy, and celebration is what distinguishes us from Geneva, Tel Aviv, or Copenhagen.
When did the business community advocate for intellectual vibrancy or for the city to take innovation seriously? When has our philanthropic community recognised it can invest for the future of the whole city when it supports innovation? Philanthropy has played a key role in how cities evolved elsewhere.
In 2022 at the request of Tataki Auckland Unlimited, Koi Tū undertook work that led to our report Reimaging Tamaki Makaurau – harnessing the region’s potential.
Identifying nine domains where we could reinvent and reinvigorate Auckland over the coming decades, the report gained a positive response from many business leaders.
We argued that Auckland needs a real vision as a city not just a marketing slogan – having good infrastructure and getting rid of orange cones is not enough.
Aucklanders need to feel they belong in a vibrant, ambitious city that values its diversity and its natural and social, intellectual, and cultural assets. A city that builds off these assets so everyone can thrive.
That report remains cogent today, arguing for greater social cohesion and quality education for all, while promoting the region’s culture and creativity, sustainability and resilience, connections, its place as a global gateway and an economic engine, and turning our unique physical environment into a real asset.
These are easy aspirational words to write but will only become reality if the different sectors of the city come together with a common vision.
The rest of New Zealand needs to understand they will win when Auckland wins.
Knowledge, connectivity and innovation are key – let’s properly fertilise the green shoots and demand more from our leaders in local government, academia, business, and civil society.
There is not yet a sense of a real ‘Team Auckland’, yet we need to be one.
