SMC Briefing: Innovation - learning from the Europeans

SMC Briefing: Innovation - learning from the Europeans

Innovation has become a major touchstone for policymakers and scientists as New Zealand makes changes to some of its state science infrastructure to better support research and development - including restructuring Industrial Research Ltd (IRL) into the nation's biggest platform for industry, to be called Advanced Technology.

Meanwhile, nearly $60 million of taxpayers' funds are about invested in the researchers who can make the best case to spend the cash, and the Prime Minister's chief science adviser, Sir Peter Gluckman,

says a smart nation must have a sufficiency of ideas flowing, an ecosystem that allows the market and the scientist to get close together, and a culture that accepts risk.

So what should be the relationship between science and policy decision-making? How do nations make decisions to invest in science and technology - and how are citizens involved? What are the successful ingredients of an economy and society that fosters innovation. What are the implications of the current economic climate on research and innovation funding and how do countries turn downturns and adversity into opportunities when it comes to transforming their economies using innovation? What can New Zealand learn from the hotspots of innovation and research in Europe and Asia and how does our nation compare in the international innovation stakes?

Journalists can next week put some of these questions to the president of the European Research Council, Professor Helga Nowotny -- who is overseeing the spending 7 billion euros on EU scientists between 2007 and 2013 -- as well as a leading local academic who has laid out a pathway for NZ in his Powering Innovation report , and an IRL researcher with insight into the relationships between innovation and economics. Professor Nowotny, visiting New Zealand as a key speaker at the inaugural Asia Pacific Science Policy Studies Research Conference, and the two New Zealanders will take part in an SMC Briefing at 10am next Wednesday where journalists will be able to canvass some of the issues facing the NZ scientists, policymakers and the businesses expected to turn innovation into income.
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