Sir

Sadly, your analysis of New Zealand science is accurate. While agreeing that underfunding of research is a problem, however, I should like to point out a much more insidious change in New Zealand science — the move from “leadership” to “management”.

I had first-hand experience of this change in 1992. The management at my newly created Crown Research Institute (CRI) told the staff that we had to get rid of the “science culture” and replace it with a “business culture”, something they have relentlessly done over the past six years to the extent that business managers and accountants are now blithely making crucial decisions about research projects which are not subject to meaningful peer review. Pockets of good science do survive, usually centred on high-calibre scientists capable of exerting leadership in a somewhat alien environment.

This disenfranchising of professionals is, of course, a national sport in New Zealand, as witnessed by the enormous problems encountered in a health system run on a market-driven model dreamt up by our Treasury. During my time in the CRIs, the pressure exerted by government to return a “profit” was so extreme that the accountants used to deduct “profit” from my government research grants on the first day of the financial year and return it to the government on the last day.

In my view, if we want to do good science that makes money, the CRIs need to be dramatically revamped. I, and many of my colleagues, believe that the fatal flaw with the CRIs is that they fall between two camps — they are neither research institutes nor commercially viable businesses. Because they are all absolutely dependent on government funding, much of the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology (FRST) funding is ring-fenced to ensure their survival and not open to truly competitive bidding by the best scientists with the best ideas.

Rather than cloak in pseudo-business-speak the present monopolistic system, could we not simply face up to the fact that we need government-funded research institutes? If we accept this, we could award say one-half of the current FRST funding direct to the CRIs as block grants to maintain their core facilities, and make the other half the subject of a truly competitive grants system to fund scientists whether in universities, private companies, CRIs or elsewhere.

Until we return scientists to centre stage in the New Zealand research scene I fear we shall be the subject of regular and equally depressing analyses by your journal.