Sir

In attempting to form a view on New Zealand science, it must be remembered that New Zealand is an isolated country with a small population and with little tradition of support for research and development (R&D) from the private sector. It also has many good scientists whose talents need to be tapped in the best possible way. The special circumstances (and problems) required a New Zealand solution and the government and scientific community are to be applauded for having the courage to try a new way.

Is it the best way? I don't think anybody knows the answer, for the jury will be out for several more years. Have mistakes been made? Undoubtedly. The micromanagement of the early days and the undue power accorded to non-scientists to make judgements on operational scientific issues stand out as the obvious ones. But those shortcomings appear to have been recognized and have to be judged against a national requirement for obtaining value for money, and relevance, from the relatively limited funding available for R&D. Is the balance between basic and applied science right? Again, who knows at this point, but the lack of adequate small grants should be addressed.

Is the New Zealand model appropriate to other countries? Given the fact that it has yet to be shown to work in the long term for New Zealand, the safe answer may be no, but small countries with a limited science base would do well to watch the New Zealand experiment, to benefit from its mistakes and hopefully to gain from its successes.

What steps might be taken to increase the chances of success? Enhancing the overall level of government funding for R&D, increasing the present level of discretionary funding from 10% to 15% or 20% to enable CRIs to do more basic research to underpin their more applied science; providing a better system of funding small ‘starter’ projects in the universities; and last, but by no means least, encouraging industry to raise its level of support for R&D.

But all that has a familiar ring, and I could just as well be talking about the United Kingdom (or Australia) as New Zealand.