New Zealand businesses and the Government have under-invested in research and development and need to change the trend now, the Prime Minister's chief science adviser Sir Peter Gluckman says.New Zealand was at the bottom for research and development spend
New Zealand businesses and the Government have under-invested in research and development and need to change the trend now, the Prime Minister's chief science adviser Sir Peter Gluckman says.
New Zealand was at the bottom for research and development spending compared to other developed countries and has been there since 1980, he told Parliament's science and education select committee today.
"We're four million people, we can't do everything, we can't do everything well."
Sir Peter said New Zealand, through the Government, must decide where to focus attention.
There were not many multi-national companies doing research in New Zealand and the Government could look at incentives that would draw such companies here.
Alternatively, they could concentrate on the domestic market which would respond to tax incentives and vouchers, or to start-up companies who needed access to capital, Sir Peter said.
It was important for research companies in New Zealand to go into partnership early with organisations that had direct and fast access to markets, he said.
"I'd rather this country owned 50 percent of a $100 billion industry than 100 percent of a $1 million industry."
Sir Peter said he did not know what was planned in the budget later this month but there needed to be more public spending to create the infrastructure and work force needed and to prompt private industry investment in research and development.
"The Government's going to have to take an active role in initiating the cultural change (needed to increase spending on research and development)."
There needed to be a bipartisan agreement to spend more on research and development and the country could not afford to wait, Sir Peter said.
"I'm doing what I can in my limited role -- remember, I'm only an adviser."
There were some things that could be done to increase research and development funding quickly and others that would require consensus and take time, Sir Peter said.
New Zealand spends about 1.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on research and development. Half of the is from the public sector and half from private industries. Most western countries spend 2.5-3.5 percent of GDP -- 0.8-1 percent from the state and the rest from the private sector.
"So we have a double problem -- we have a state that has established a pattern of spending where our expenditure is at the lowest end of the range of what modern western democracies spend on R and D," Sir Peter said.
"We also have this very low private expenditure on R and D."
Israel was an extreme example, but it spent 4.9 percent, excluding defence, of GDP on research and development.
Countries that invest more in research and development had done better than New Zealand had, Sir Peter said.
