Crown Research Institutes Research Articles

New Zealand’s bibliometric record in research and development: 1990–2008

Over the last two decades, the New Zealand government has sought to achieve improved outcomes in science and technology through structural reform, rather than increased levels of investment in the sector. How successful has this strategy been? Here we look at New Zealand’s bibliometric output over the last two decades, using the Thompson Reuters Web of Science database. The database reveals that bibliometric productivity has remained static over this time period, with changes in publication rate driven by increasing levels of full–time equivalent staff members, principally through growth in the tertiary sector. Although the citation impact of university publications has increased, the citation impact of the Crown research institutes has grown at a similar, if not faster, rate, suggesting that the performance-based research fund is not responsible for this increase.

New initiatives in science teaching a welcome step

​​The Government has just announced two initiatives to improve science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) teaching in New Zealand schools. The New Zealand Association of Scientists applauds this move and echoes Minister Joyce’s statement that ‘Boosting the skills and achievement of our young people in maths and science are essential for their future careers and for New Zealand’s economic growth and prosperity’. Dr Nicola Gaston, President of NZAS, said, ‘More broadly, there is a need to boost understanding of science among teachers, students, and across the whole adult population as well, as it is the nature of scientific knowledge to develop beyond what any of us once learnt at school’.There is an obvious and urgent need to advance science and technological literacy in New Zealand. Only recently, the head of Orion Healthcare described the huge shortage of technologically able workers in this country. ‘High-tech industry requires highly trained people, and the production of this capability should be recognised as a key goal of our science system’, said Dr Gaston.Recent reports detailing a fall-off in year-8 student abilities in science and writing underlines the urgent need for improvement. Dr Gaston also commented, ‘Fragmentation and uncertainty have become endemic in New Zealand science. Our government needs to recognise that their policy decisions play a role in shaping the attractiveness of a career in science. We would hope that these new education initiatives are a step towards telling our brightest young students that there are careers besides the professions of medicine and engineering, and that a science degree is the best training for the jobs of the future’.The New Zealand Association of Scientists (www.scientists.org.nz) is a nationwide association of practising research scientists spanning the universities, technical institutes, Crown research institutes, government departments, industry, museums, other science institutions, and independent researchers.

The Practice of Science for Technological Innovation learnings and implications for Te Ara Paerangi

An effective science system needs to provide expertise and knowledge to respond to societal issues in Aotearoa New Zealand. In 2022 the government released the white paper Te Ara Paerangi: future pathways to outline a vision for a future science system. This research explores how mission-led science has operated through the National Science Challenges, using Science for Technological Innovation as a case study. In the context of Te Ara Paerangi, the research examines the elements of Science for Technological Innovation’s practice and offers implications for future mission-oriented science programmes that will be relevant to government policymakers, universities, Crown Research Institutes and science leaders.

Hill Country Futures - Resilient farmers and resilient forages for the future

A thriving hill country farming sector is crucial for New Zealand’s economy and its regions. However, it faces numerous challenges, such as increased regulations, and changing societal expectations. To ensure the longterm success and well-being of farmers, farm systems, the environment, and rural communities, support is essential for building lasting resilience. To address some of these challenges, the Hill Country Futures Partnership programme was initiated, receiving $8.1 million funding over five years. This programme, cofunded by Beef + Lamb New Zealand (B+LNZ), the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, PGG Wrightson Seeds, and RAGT New Zealand, concluded in 2023. During the programme, the farming community were actively engaged, and a collaborative research approach was employed involving B+LNZ, farmers, universities, Crown Research Institutes, and consulting agencies. The programme consisted of interconnected workstreams with a focus on resilient farmers and future-oriented forages. It generated a wide range of resources, including easily accessible extension materials, tools, and scientific publications, covering social, environmental, and technical aspects to support New Zealand’s hill country farming systems. And it showed how a collaborative approach, inclusive of researchers and farmers with diverse backgrounds and expertise, can help create a more resilient hillcountry future.

The future of molecular ecology in Aotearoa New Zealand: an early career perspective

ABSTRACT The skills, insights, and genetic data gathered by molecular ecologists are pivotal to addressing many contemporary biodiversity, environmental, cultural, and societal challenges. Concurrently, the field of molecular ecology is being revolutionised by rapid technological development and diversification in the scope of its applications. Hence, it is timely to review the future opportunities of molecular ecological research in Aotearoa New Zealand, and to reconcile them with philosophies of open science and the implications for Indigenous data sovereignty and benefit sharing. Future molecular ecologists need to be interdisciplinary, equipped to embrace innovation, and informed about the broader societal relevance of their research, as well as advocates of best practice. Here, we present an ideal future for molecular ecology in Aotearoa, based on the perspectives of 23 early career researchers from tertiary institutions, Crown Research Institutes, research consultancies, and government agencies. Our article provides: a guide for molecular ecologists embarking on genetic research in Aotearoa, and a primer for individuals in a position to support early career molecular ecologists in Aotearoa. We outline our goals and highlight specific considerations – for molecular ecology and the scientific community in Aotearoa – based on our own experience and aspirations, and invite other researchers to join this dialogue.

AgYields - a national database for collation of past, present and future pasture and crop yield data

The New Zealand agricultural sector has a rich heritage of measuring yield and growth rates for pastures and crops. Historically these datasets were collected by Government departments, Crown research institutes, Universities and more latterly seed companies and private research providers as well as on-farm. These data are expensive to collect, spatially and temporally patchy, and stored in a range of electronic and physical platforms. Meanwhile the potential value of such data is increasing with the ability to create meta-analyses and simulation modelling to create resilience in crop and pasture systems to meet the needs of the changing regulatory and climate environment. A challenge of data collection is the different priorities and skill sets of those undertaking the task. Thus, there is a need to provide guidelines for the collection, collation and publication of such data to standardize best practice and maximize the value gained from increasingly scarce resources available for pasture and crop research to support the primary industries. In addition, declining funding for field research, means there is an urgent need to draw together existing and future data into a publicly accessible industry good resource. This paper outlines the development of the AgYields web-based repository for pasture and crop growth rate and yield data. It describes the rationale for the database and the need for standardization of data collection to maximize the value of stored data in common formats. The intent is to provide a resource to enhance livestock and crop production systems throughout New Zealand and provide guidelines for future data collection.

Under-represented and overlooked: Māori and Pasifika scientists in Aotearoa New Zealand’s universities and crown-research institutes

ABSTRACT This article provides insights into the ethnicity of people employed in Aotearoa New Zealand’s publicly-funded scientific workforce, with a particular focus on Māori and Pasifika scientists. We show that between 2008 and 2018, Māori and Pasifika scientists were severely under-represented in Aotearoa New Zealand’s universities and crown-research institutes. Despite espousals by these institutions of valuing diversity, te Tiriti o Waitangi and Māori research, there have been very little changes in the overall percentage of Māori and Pasifika scientists employed for a period of at least 11 years. Notably, one university reported having not employed a single Māori or Pasifika academic in their science department from 2008 to 2018. We highlight the urgent need for institutions to improve how they collect and disseminate data that speaks to the diversity of their employees. We present data that illustrate that universities and crown-research institutes are failing to build a sustainable Māori and Pasifika scientific workforce and that these institutions need to begin to recruit, retain and promote Māori and Pasifika scientists.

GeoDataHub: Building centralised repository of authoritative cartographic and geospatial resources

Abstract. GeoDataHub (geodatahub.library.auckland.ac.nz) is an authoritative national repository of cartographic and geospatial resources curated by the University of Auckland Library for research, government, and educational communities, as well as the public of New Zealand. Its objectives are to digitise cartographic materials, provide integrated and enhanced data access, and build a unique knowledge base concerning New Zealand’s cartographic heritage. GeoDataHub showcases conceptual developments in cartography, surveying, photogrammetry, and other mapping, earth, and social science disciplines, highlighting their contribution to the development of the nation. It supports a dynamic, innovative, and leading edge historical and GIScience research, facilitating scientific discovery and knowledge building. The repository contains digitised maps and charts published by authoritative agencies and research institutes, aerial photography provided by local authorities and all of government satellite imagery. A selection of key geospatial datasets produced by the government, Crown research institutes and local authorities augment the repository – currently over 30TB of data. The focus of GeoDataHub is on providing cartographic and geospatial resources for New Zealand, its offshore islands and territories; South Pacific, particularly Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau; and Ross Dependency in Antarctica. Regional coverage primarily includes Auckland and Waikato, and parts of Northland, Bay of Plenty and East Cape. Local datasets cover primarily Auckland Region but a selection of datasets from other regions is also included. GeoDataHub is augmented by physical collection of maps and charts, atlases, aerial photographs, gazetteers, map indexes and catalogues, and cartographic paraphernalia, located in the Map Room of the University of Auckland Library. This paper talks about challenges associated with the design, implementation and provision of content for GeoDataHub. Apart from building an integrated and enhanced data access application, facilitating textual, spatial and temporal search, metadata harvesting and discovery utilising GeoNetwork, a catalogue application that manages spatially referenced resources (www.geonetwork-opensource.org), the repository provides a further two ways of accessing cartographic and geospatial resources. One involves browsing the selected content of the repository, examining and downloading the material of interest; the other allows users to ‘map a drive’ and access all materials using familiar folder structure (the latter applies to the University community of users only). This approach however, occasionally requires provision of the same datasets in two different formats (compressed and uncompressed) depending how the users are accessing them. In addition, a knowledge base concerning New Zealand cartographic heritage is being implemented, providing a useful guide to authoritative mapping served by GeoDataHub. A particular challenge concerns documenting their provenance, content, extent and general characteristics in a modular fasion. The paper concludes with presenting plans for extending GeoDataHub. This includes not only the creation of further geospatial records, provision of more content and expanding the knowledge base, but also strategic decisions concerning the selection of cartographic and geospatial resources and how to provide the best service possible to our growing user base.

Flood Schemes, Flood Hazards, and Awareness in New Zealand

Despite the widespread use of flood mitigation schemes, where targeted property taxes are used to fund flood infrastructure, there has only been limited research on them. This research set out to fill that information gap, including a broad data collection effort across regional and district councils, consultants, Crown Research Institutes, and academic sources. This paper catalogues highlights of the data collected from that effort and previews ongoing analysis of that data. We obtained and/or created comprehensive maps of flood hazards, flood schemes, sea level rise, and insurance claims. These data and their relation to social and economic data are highlighted in this paper. After an extensive data collection, we have national maps of flood hazards, flood schemes, and sea level rise risk. These should be broadly useful in other research. We also compare measures of peoples’ awareness of flood risk, such as survey data and EQC damage claims, to flood hazard maps. There are several notable areas where they do not align, which has several important policy implications for future planning.

New Zealand Plant Protection Medal 2017

This medal is awarded by the New Zealand Plant Protection Society to honour those who have made exceptional contributions to plant protection in New Zealand in the widest sense. The medal is awarded for outstanding services to plant protection, whether through research, education, implementation or leadership.
 In 2017, the New Zealand Plant Protection Medal was awarded Prof David Maxwell (Max) Suckling. In his 35+ years of research, Max has been pivotal in bringing odour-based technologies to New Zealand. In particular, his research on insect pheromones has enabled integrated pest management to be realised in this country. As a result, New Zealand plant-based industries can access premium overseas markets due to the low pest prevalence and low pesticide residue on primary produce. It has also reduced grower exposure to pesticides.
 The acknowledgement of his broad knowledge of risks and benefits that new organisms and substances can pose to New Zealand has been exemplified by his position of Chair of the Environmental Risk Management Authority Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Committee where he presided over decisions from determining which organisms are new to New Zealand through to whether the benefits of the release of new organisms outweighed the risks. His unique knowledge and ability to make sound judgements based on the evidence presented also led to two invitations back to the Environmental Protection Authority after he had finished as a special member on the Committee so that New Zealand could safely continue to assess the use of biological control agents.
 Since 2004, in his role as Science Group Leader of the Biosecurity group at The New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Ltd (PFR), Max has been instrumental in developing tools to improve detection sensitivity and socially acceptable eradication options for new pests that threaten New Zealand, such as the Queensland fruit fly and the painted apple moth.
 Max has been a member of the New Zealand Plant Protection Society for many years and served as President from 1999 to 2001. He was nominated for the Medal because of the passion he has displayed towards developing and making available socially acceptable pest eradication and management tools in New Zealand. The work that he and the chemical ecology team he has built and led, has had a large impact in many sectors from horticulture to biosecurity.
 This use of socially acceptable tools for the productive sectors naturally led to Max’s involvement in the pest surveillance and eradication space. He led the Eradication and Response Theme in the Better Border Biosecurity collaboration for over ten years, co-ordinating research among Crown Research Institutes to achieve their goals and the goals of New Zealand’s biosecurity practitioners. He has gone beyond odour-based technologies and branched into sound, vision and sterile-insect technologies for managing pests, sticking with the social acceptance theme.
 Max is an innovative thinker, testing novel approaches for pest management, and can bring quite separate groups together to achieve a goal. For example, he combined an irradiator used to sterilise medical equipment and insect rearing to achieve a boutique insect-sterilisation programme against the painted apple moth. By pushing the envelope, he is seen as a world leader in his field of using socially acceptable tools, with numerous invitations as a keynote speaker at international meetings, which has allowed him to return to New Zealand with some of the latest scientific ideas.
 He has served on working groups of the sterile-insect technique for the joint division of the Food and Agriculture Organization/International Atomic Energy Agency. He was recently made a professor when he was made a joint appointment at PFR and the University of Auckland, and has supervised and co-supervised a number of PhD and MSc students.
 His outstanding collaboration and mentoring skills enable him to work across different fields, secure new knowledge and tools for novel pest-management approaches, bring together people from different organisations, and mentor ‘thinking-out-of-the-square’ scientists for the future.
 His desire to protect New Zealand’s flora, fauna and people, make him a worthy recipient of the New Zealand Plant Protection Medal.
 
 NZPP Medal recipients for the previous five years:
 2016: Rob Beresford
 2015: Gary Barker
 2014: -
 2013: Andrew Hodson
 2012: Margaret Dick

The Science-for-Life Partnerships: Does size really matter, and can ICT help?

This study introduces findings of an initial pilot from a New Zealand government-funded initiative known as Science-for-Life, which aims to enhance the quality of science teaching through the formation of face-to-face and virtual learning partnerships involving crown research institutes (CRIs) and primary and secondary schools. Using a case study methodology, it describes and analyses a trial partnership between the CRI, Scion Research, and teachers of Seadown Primary School in Hamilton. The study uses Grobe’s (1990) typology of industry-education partnerships as an analytical “lens” through which to evaluate the characteristics of the partnership, and explores the role that ICT played in establishing and sustaining it, well beyond its anticipated conclusion. Findings indicate that while in terms of Grobe’s framework a genuine partnership label may not have been appropriate in this case, the interaction nonetheless proved to be extremely valuable in supporting learning goals, and that while ICT played a significant role in this, it was not fundamental to the partnership’s success.

Competition to collaboration: changing the dynamics of science

Our current approach to science has engendered excessive individual and institutional competition and complexity in funding instruments. We contend that a future science system will require a more collaborative approach that supports competition for ideas within a greater ‘mission-led’ environment. We build on our experiences within the New Zealand science sector to envisage a more collaborative and open framework for delivery, which will provide long-term career opportunities and recognise the importance of vibrant universities, Crown Research Institutes and other private sector participants. A new approach will be founded on successful implementation of the National Science Challenges through a balance of science excellence, effective boards, creating best teams free of institutional constraints, a focus on delivering outcomes and benefits, sharing of data and infrastructure, and engaging with wider society.

Mycorrhiza for all: an under‐earth revolution

Mycorrhiza for all: an under‐earth revolution

From competition to collaboration: challenges for New Zealand science

Science has long been based on a model of individual and institutional competition. The reforms of the sector in the 1990s led to the formation of the crown research institutes (CRIs), which had responsibilities for specific economic or environmental sectors, independence and separate governance. The bulk of funding came via the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology, with often intense competition for resources. This was exacerbated by the openness of the investment processes to universities, research associations and other research providers. Over the past decade there were various attempts to encourage interdisciplinary and collaborative programmes, manage overbidding and establish alternative models, such as outcome-based investments, but there were still significant transaction costs in the competitive bidding processes.

Doing science in a culture of accountability: Compliance through resistance to alienation and estrangement

New Zealand's system of public funding of research was restructured during 1990–92 to delineate the policy, funder, and provider roles. Crown Research Institutes (CRIs) were created as companies operating in a competitive, global, market‐led economy, in order to be efficient in the use of public money and accountable to government goals. This paper explores how restructuring impacted on those who work in science, through an ethnographic study of a CRI. This CRI responded to this environment by corporatisation, instituting a management system which, through accountability requirements and normative control, sought to gain power over scientific workers. As a result they experienced alienation and estrangement, which they resisted by developing compliance tactics that enabled them to stay in employment and ostensibly align with organisational and governmental goals, while maintaining and protecting their self‐identities and making their work meaningful. The implications and risks of this response to the research funding system are discussed.

The MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology: a New Zealand Centre of Research Excellence

The MacDiarmid Institute is a New Zealand Centre of Research Excellence, established in 2002 to draw together some of the disparate activities in these fields. It is named after Nobel prize-winner, Alan MacDiarmid, a New Zealander who brought his scientific insights and vision to the Institute during the first five years of its existence. We review the brief history of the Institute here, putting it in the context of the New Zealand scientific research environment, and outline the activities that are being undertaken in its six research Themes: Nano-engineered Materials and Devices; Electronic and Optical Materials; Molecular Materials; Soft Materials; Inorganic and Hybrid Materials; and The Intersection of Nanoscience and Biology. This research is distributed amongst approximately 40 Principal Investigators at five New Zealand universities and two Crown Research Institutes (CRIs), and involves a significant amount of international collaboration. Funding is largely through the New Zealand Ministry of Education, so there is a strong emphasis on training graduate students and increasing the public awareness and uptake of nanotechnology research.

Nutrigenomics and gut health: meeting report from an international conference in Auckland, New Zealand, April 30, May 1–3, 2006

Nutrigenomics New Zealand (NuNZ) is a partnership among a major New Zealand University, The University of Auckland, and three crown research institutes, Crop & Food Research, AgResearch and HortResearch. It is the first nutrigenomics centre in New Zealand and has a website, http://www.nutrigenomics.org.nz. An initial 6 years of funding is provided through the New Zealand Foundation for Research Science and technology (FRST). The title of the project is “Tailoring New Zealand foods to match people’s genes”, and it involves six different sites across New Zealand, interacting to provide a strong focus on a single target outcome. The initial focus is on inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), especially one subset of such individuals who show the symptoms of Crohn’s disease (CD). This is a good example of a disease where there is clear evidence for genetic predisposition, at least in a proportion of cases, but where environmental factors including diet, are likely to trigger symptoms of the disease. Unlike the situation in celiac disease, there is no single type of food which is either beneficial or detrimental. Thus the prospects are good for tailoring foods and/or diets to individual genotypes. Some of the results already obtained by NuNZ are relevant to gut health generally, and it is likely that pathway specific foods can be developed based upon current knowledge. To the best of our knowledge, NuNZ is the first strategic project centred on nutrigenomics, that brings together academic institutions and food industry to promote the study of nutrient-gene interactions, with the intention of developing foods and/or diets suited to specific genotypes. Thus, NuNZ was in a good position to host an international conference on “Nutrigenomics and Gut health”. The first international conference on Nutrigenomics and Gut Health brought together more than 200 individuals from 19 different countries. The topic reflected a growing recognition that gut health is crucial to overall health, and a key focus of the functional foods area. Gut health is heavily influenced by genetic polymorphisms, and also by the gut bacteria. The interplay between these and our diet provides a key not only to gut health, but also to an understanding of susceptibility to some key diseases of the Western world.

Contestability and contested stability: Life and times of CSIRO’s New Zealand cousins, the Crown Research Institutes

SummaryThe progress of the Crown Research Institutes (CRIs) since their formation in 1992 from the dismantling of the centralised Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) is charted. Particular attention is paid to the funding environment, characterised by the concept of contestability, in which the CRIs have operated. In recent years, the CRIs have lobbied for more funding stability arguing that contestability has resulted in fickle funding decisions, eroding their ability to plan for the long-term and build human capital. Certainly recent changes in policy reflect a greater concern with CRI capability. When the Government moved to increase the amount of core funding for CRIs, however, the universities, concerned that this would reduce their access to funding, argued that this ‘stability’ would result in ossification and less than excellent science. The paper concludes with some reflections on the contrast between the CSIRO and CRI cousins, and on the future for CRIs.

The Gold in the Heads of Scientists: Metaphor and Public Sector Reform

Abstract: Metaphors of business were endemic in the reform of the New Zealand public sector. Such metaphors have considerable potential consequences for control in the reformed organisations. The study focused on the new organisations created for state‐funded science in New Zealand, the Crown Research Institutes. Analysis of the metaphors that emerged during debates on the establishing legislation and in the Chairmen's reports for the first three years of operations showed that the key metaphors that emerged, while from within the business context, paper over the conflicts and ambiguities of the CRIs' task, and in the most positive case shift to a relational and caring image. The fragmented picture that emerges from the CRI documents points to many intriguing research questions about accountability, control and effectiveness in organisations that lie at the juncture of many boundaries.

Science from the periphery: Collaboration, networks and 'Periphery Effects' in the citation of New Zealand Crown Research Institutes articles, 1995-2000

While collaboration is associated with higher article citation rates, a body of research has suggested that this is, in part, related to the access to a larger social network and the increased visibility of research this entails, rather than simply a reflection of greater quality. We examine the role of networks in article citation rates by investigating article publication by the nine New Zealand Government-owned Crown Research Institutes (CRIs), drawing on the Science Citation Index. We analyse an aggregate data set of all CRI publications with duplicates removed, and, in addition, investigate each CRI. We find that a greater number of authors, countries and institutions involved in co-publication increases expected citation rates, although there are some differences between the CRIs. However, the type of co-publication affects the expected citation rates. We discover a 'periphery effect' where greater levels of co-publication with domestic institutions decreases expected citation rates. We conclude that scientists working on the periphery looking to increase the visibility of their research should strive to link their research to the international research community, particularly through co-publication with international authors.