It’s midday in Christchurch and Aotearoa’s science éminence grise, Sir Peter Gluckman, is well into pressing business. Only days before, he had returned from Rwanda and a meeting of the International Science Council, of which he is president. Now, Gluckman has caught an early flight from Auckland to Christchurch for meetings for another of the hats he wears: chairing the government’s Science System Advisory Group and its University Advisory Group.
A half-finished Americano coffee sits in front of him on the table at the airport-adjacent Commodore Hotel and he’s tapping away on his tablet, making notes before he takes another flight mid-afternoon, en route to Wellington for more business of science and education.
If this was the US, Gluckman would be called the nation’s “science tsar”. From 2009-18, he was our inaugural chief science adviser to the prime minister, serving John Key, Bill English and Jacinda Ardern and receiving the nation’s highest honour, membership of the Order of New Zealand, midway.
For the past four years, he has been director of the University of Auckland’s Koi Tū: The Centre for Informed Futures, an apt career bookend to his initial work as a paediatrician.
Now, at 75, he has picked up arguably his biggest role yet. The coalition government has handed him what seems a colossal job, chairing both the science and universities advisory groups.
With the ashes of Labour’s Te Ara Paerangi – Future Pathways science reforms still smouldering before him, Gluckman will lead teams trying to chart a vigorous way forward for Kiwi science and the tertiary sector during the next few decades.
Why him? “You’d have to ask the two ministers, or cabinet, why they chose me,” he says. “I suspect I’m seen to be a senior person who’s worked on all sides of the equation. I hope I’m reasonably trusted. I think I’m quite good at separating the wheat from the chaff and not getting caught up in the weeds, but actually, with the panel, asking the real questions.
“Reviews are not there to solve all the practical details. They’re there to kick the tyres and ask the real questions: What’s the system for? What do you want from it? What shape should it look like? What are the issues within it? How do we fix them? And then, if the government accepts our review, it’s for the [relevant] ministry to work out how to operationalise it.
“I’m not sure who else could have done it if you’re going to do it as one review. And I don’t mean that egotistically, but you have to have a person who had a deep understanding of both systems, of research, innovation and higher education.
“My wife didn’t want me to do it. It’s a big burden, but it’s one that is so important for New Zealand.”
Reforms ditched
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins killed off Te Ara Paerangi in February, telling members of the science community in a letter she had been considering how to address the sector’s systemic problems. “As such [I] intend not to take the Te Ara Paerangi – Future Pathways programme forward.”
Labour’s proposed reforms collected the thoughts of many hundreds as to how New Zealand could lift its poor spending on research and development, which is currently hovering at about 1.5% of GDP – half that of similar-sized nations we compare ourselves with, such as Denmark and Finland.
The consultation had asked whether crown research institutes (CRIs) were still fit for purpose, what could be done to improve diversity in science and respect the Treaty of Waitangi, and how better to support the career pathways of young scientists.
However, Te Ara Paerangi did not include the significant amount of research being carried out by academics, and Gluckman clearly has doubts about the robustness of the reform work. Did Te Ara Paerangi fail to meet Collins’ and the government’s needs?
“It didn’t meet anybody’s. It didn’t meet the community’s needs, it didn’t consider the university system, it didn’t consider well the private sector and innovation. It had too limited a set of constraints.
“Look at the questions – it was CRIs and Māori, and basically not much else. It was not asking the higher-level questions. It didn’t address the fundamentals – why do we have a research system? What shape should it take? How does it relate to the research in higher education? It’s tinkering to only look at a part of a system; we need to look at the whole system.”
Such holistic reviews happen only once in a generation and need to be bipartisan, he says. “It’s not that that [Te Ara Paerangi] work is wasted – we’ve got access to all the submissions – it’s just got to be put into a broader context, a much broader context, of what New Zealand needs, as opposed to what was ideal for the narrow perspectives that were there. “There’s lots we can use, but … most of it is a stage down from where we are now thinking. And, given the tight timetable, I’m being very structured with the panels to work through and not get caught up going down rabbit holes prematurely.”
Gluckman says he met Collins and Tertiary Education Minister Penny Simmonds before agreeing to both jobs to ensure there were no prejudgments about the outcomes.
“Both ministers have been very willing not to put constraints on how the review proceeds. I’ve never met a more open-minded situation than this in all my years in government, where there’s a genuine interest, and I’d say the prime minister has it also, to … get the best outcome that we can and for us to come up with our views of what the best outcomes might be.
“People should give the government credit – whether it’s Judith Collins, whether it’s the prime minister or Penny Simmonds or the three parties that make up the coalition – that whatever else people may think of them, there’s an open mind to actually have a real look at the whole system. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have done it.”
First, the weather
It’s a case of wheels within wheels. There’s plenty of soul-searching going on in the science and research sector, with strands that intersect but aren’t necessarily tied to the high-level Gluckman reviews.
A report on the country’s weather forecasting system, Project Hau Nuku, to determine future weather and climate forecasting needs and potentially sort out competition between state-funded Niwa and MetService, is now with ministers and likely to be released shortly.
A review of the CRIs is also under way. Currently, there are seven, plus the under-pressure Callaghan Innovation agency. There are rumours from within CRIs that they may be merged into just one or two institutes and that they may no longer be classed as “for-profit” entities under the Companies Act.
Then there’s the 11 National Science Challenges set up in 2014 to foster inter-agency collaboration researching crucial New Zealand issues, such as climate change, hazards and healthy living. These were to end on June 30 and it is unclear what, if anything, may replace them and how the science they were doing will carry on.
New Zealand Association of Scientists co-president Troy Baisden says it is shocking by international standards to see such an abrupt end to the challenges, each funding large teams in areas seen as the most important topics for the nation.
“By abrupt I mean that the end is not only effectively unplanned, but also no one really expected they would just end with no replacement.”
Gluckman says the weather forecasting review is part of the broader context and an opportunity to think about the major users of social science and environmental science. It also ties in with the science panel’s requirement to consider the government’s own use and purchase of science. “It’s quite insightful of cabinet to put that into the review. I think they should be congratulated. It’s unique in the world.”
How much change might CRIs expect? Gluckman is keeping his cards close to his chest. The institutes have been relatively stable since their establishment in 1992, he says, apart from the merger to form Plant and Food Research in 2008 and the disestablishment of the Institute for Social Research and Development in 1995. “But fundamentally, we have kept the same mix of public research organisations we had in 1992, in a world that’s very different.
“You can assume that – and I’ve talked to CRI chairs and CEOs about this – there’s any range of possibilities, from no change to very substantive change. I don’t think anybody expects no change. But it would be premature for me to say, when the panel is only starting to work through the options.”
Challenges lost
When it comes to the demise of the challenges, Gluckman is less coy. “The nature of research is changing around the world. We have learnt a lot from the National Science Challenges … but these were time-limited funding mechanisms; they were not core-funded. Because science changes.
“Twenty years ago, AI was a fringe topic. AI is now central. So, one needs to think how the science systems adapt and evolve to keep on the focus. And what might have been mainstream research 25 years ago may not be now, and vice versa.”
Programme directors and boards of the challenges have known for years they were on time-limited funding, he says, and no country allows such science funding mechanisms to continue indefinitely.
“We have obviously some particularities of geography, demography, culture, ethnic mix, etc, our deep embedded agricultural background and a relative underinvestment [in science] over decades. We have to work out what should we do now … and that may or may not involve some level of disruption.
“If some aspects have now become core to New Zealand’s future, they should have been planning how they could be transferred into core business of the involved institutions and making the case for support some time ago, rather than waiting to the end.
“You prioritise when you decide how much money to spend in R&D, on defence; there’s lots of different ones. But these things tend to go down to the weeds: ‘Support my research, because my research is the most important thing in the world.’ It comes back to how priorities are set by scientists, by society, by government.”
A 40-year problem
The frustrations of making Aotearoa’s research system internationally competitive and robust are clear for someone as fervent about science as Gluckman.
“For god’s sake New Zealand, if we want to be part of the First World, we need to look at the whole system.
“This is not a three-year problem. This is a 30- to 40-year problem. In 1980, New Zealand had the same GDP as Denmark, which had the same mixed primary sector production as New Zealand. By 2009, Denmark had invested US$64 billion more in R&D than New Zealand. Now we’re looking at 15 years later – god knows what the gap is. This is actually a deep cultural problem in New Zealand.”
Countries he has visited in Europe and Africa understand that knowledge and its use are critical in a knowledge-driven world.
“In a university system, there are lots of issues. What are the universities for? They’re for more than just producing workforces, they are the intellectual engines of a country.”
Does New Zealand need a third medical school, at the University of Waikato? “I’m not going to comment on that, for obvious reasons. But we have six law schools. Do we have enough engineering? Where’s our AI? Do we match need and supply? And that’s a hard question, because what’s the need going to be in 10 years’ time?
“How do we get a more co-ordinated system while respecting university autonomy?
“I worry like hell that all our best students are going offshore. That says something about our system. Going offshore as undergraduates means we’ve probably lost them forever.”
So, are these reviews perhaps the most important things he has done over a long career in science?
“Only if the advice we give has action. If it’s effective – and effective doesn’t mean everything we do is listened to but is sufficient to actually shift the trajectory of New Zealand’s use of research and innovation and how we evolve our higher education system to meet a variety of needs.
“Obviously, it’s hopefully not the last thing I do.”
Tandem reviews
Sir Peter Gluckman is diffident about how he was appointed. “It’s complicated. Obviously, I’ve known [Science Minister] Judith Collins for a long time. I’ve known [Tertiary Education Minister] Penny Simmonds not so long. At Koi Tū, we always make a point of talking to the opposition as well as the government, and being non-partisan. I think I’ve earned the trust of a lot of people, and soon after they became government, there were discussions with both ministers.”
So, did they ring or email and say they had something he might be interested in? “No, it doesn’t work that way. I don’t even remember the details, to be honest.”
Gluckman says he “may have been consulted along the way” over some potential members of the science system and universities review panels, but it was a ministry decision. The two advisory groups are working in tandem; reciprocal observers from each panel are on the other. The science system panel, established and supported by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, has eight members plus Gluckman, and is due to present the first of a two-part report by mid-July. The second, with final recommendations, is due at the end of October.
The universities panel has seven members and Gluckman and is overseen by the Ministry of Education. It is expected to make an initial report at the end of August and a final one next February.
Phase one of consultation for both groups ended in May when submissions closed on the science, innovation and technology system and on the role of universities.
Gluckman will be paid $900 a day for one day a week over 40 weeks for the science system review. Group members will be paid $600 a day for one day a week over the same period. Simmonds’ office says members of the universities panel will be paid the same.
