A new report to the Prime Minister recommends moving more of NZ’s science funding into advanced technology.
The recommendations, made by the PM’s Science, Innovation & Technology Advisory Council, will go into the investment plan that Research Funding NZ will use for funding decisions.
The Council also suggested centering funding around four “pillars” related to primary industries, technology, environment, and health & society.
The SMC asked experts to comment.
Dr James Hutchinson, CEO of KiwiNet, comments:
“This report is a positive step for New Zealand’s science, innovation and technology system. It is encouraging to see a stronger mission-led framing, a clearer focus on advanced technologies, recognition of commercialisation and knowledge transfer as critical translation mechanisms, and an explicit acknowledgement that investigator-led research must remain part of the system. That matters, because game-changing innovation does not come from translation alone — it depends on a healthy pipeline from blue-skies and fundamental research through to application and scale-up.
“The next challenge is getting the mission structure right in practice. Mission-led approaches work best when the goals are clear, the theory of change is sound, and the framework is strong enough to align effort, investment and capability across the system. It is also good to see a stronger emphasis on measuring inputs, outputs and impact.
“As this is implemented, it will also be important to define clearly how the NZ Institute for Advanced Technology adds value within the wider system. Its role should connect into existing commercialisation and tech transfer capability, not duplicate it. More broadly, if New Zealand wants the outcomes this report is aiming for, we will need to back the whole system more strongly — from discovery through to commercialisation and scale-up — rather than treat this as a zero-sum exercise at current funding levels.”
Conflict of interest statement: “KiwiNet is primarily funded by the Government through the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. Its shareholders are New Zealand universities and publicly funded research organisations.”
Associate Professor Mahsa McCauley (Mohaghegh), AUT & Chair of the AI Forum New Zealand, comments:
“The four‑pillar framework and the proposed shift to 60/40 mission‑led funding brings New Zealand into closer alignment with leading innovation economies such as Singapore, Israel, and Denmark. Critically, the recognition of AI as a cross‑cutting enabler across all four pillars—from precision agriculture to health informatics—signals a sophisticated understanding of how advanced technologies amplify the impact of research across the science system.
“The proposed Advanced Research Projects Agency-style “Ignition Fund” could finally unlock the bold, high‑risk research New Zealand has historically been too cautious to pursue. The next essential step will be pairing this investment shift with a national AI education and upskilling strategy, ensuring all New Zealanders have opportunities to build practical AI capability and that our workforce is ready to absorb and deploy these technologies at scale.”
Conflict of interest statement: “I am an Associate Professor in the School of Engineering, Computer & Mathematical Sciences at Auckland University of Technology (AUT). I am also Chair of AI Forum New Zealand and New Zealand Commissioner for Communication and information at UNESCO. I have no financial conflicts of interest in relation to the content of this comment.”
Dr Lucy Stewart, Co-President, New Zealand Association of Scientists, comments:
“The core challenge faced by the research and science system in Aotearoa New Zealand is underfunding. After several consecutive years of cuts including around 700 (and counting) job losses, the best proposal the government has appears to be robbing Peter to pay Paul: taking money from all other areas of research to fund technology research.
“The argument for this is that we have a ‘bias’ towards agricultural and environmental research, ignoring the fact that we are a country whose economy depends very heavily on the environment. Decreasing funding from all other areas will inevitably lead to further loss of capability.
“If the government wants to invest in technology it should do so. Asserting that the only way to do this is to underfund other research areas to an even greater degree than they already are is an admission that there is no real interest in Aotearoa having a thriving research sector which can serve our society. There is only an ever-tightening spiral downwards.”
Conflict of interest statement: “No conflicts.”
Professor Troy Baisden, Co-President, New Zealand Association of Scientists, comments:
“This report will have consequences that are dire and damaging. We are now expected to accept that our research system will buy lottery tickets in areas of technology we have mostly neglected and fallen behind in, while ensuring that our enduring strengths like agriculture and horticulture face very large cuts.
“With research now lumped into four pillars, the Primary Industries and Bioeconomy area will face a 22% cut in its current $251m in funding. That’s catastrophic and made worse by sugar-coating, including the suggestion that $42m over 7.5 years for biodiscovery within the Tech pillar will make up for the $56m cut. It might only cover inflation.
“It is very desirable to find $138m to build platforms of Tech research. But hope is overstated that the shift will have ‘outsized’ payoffs, which may be hard to capture the value of within the motu when this research must go to international markets to succeed.
“Sadly, to find the funding for Tech, we will gut the three other pillars that all have strong focus and benefits within our nation. Much may also be lost in the gaps between the four simplified pillars. No clear justification is given for cutting Environment and Health less than Bioeconomy. I surmise there may be a fallacy operating: that agricultural industry can pay for the research itself, but that is exactly what undermines our competitiveness and leaves us stuck providing commodities like milk powder to multinationals with little value added or captured.
“It is astounding that the logic for such cuts begins (in Figure 1) by comparing ourselves mainly to small advanced economies, rather than our competitors in these areas, including Australia and the Netherlands.
“The report provides what are almost common sense solutions to two challenges: creating a flexible and responsive ability to fund new ideas and responses, and measuring what our research system is doing and delivering so that we can better manage it. Sadly both were well developed in institutions a decade ago, and then eliminated as control was decentralised. Now a new body, Research Funding New Zealand is to be formed and immediately take responsibility for these? This is not an area where ‘building the airplane while it flies’ normally works out well.
“Almost all of what is proposed, including expectations that areas will be deprioritised suggests that scientists and innovators will remain tangled in challenges and costs from excessive management, ongoing uncertainty as well as political interference and silencing – losing their voice to advocate for either funding or public good using their expertise.
“The biggest story in this report is what’s missing. It doesn’t understand the impact the cuts will have on the workforce, international collaboration or the foundational parts of our science system that were emphasised in the Science System Advisory Group reports. Most of these, such as the infrastructure that is shared across two or more pillars, are mentioned only as having been kicked down the road for future consideration. From the workforce perspective, we’re told that a projected $850m three years down the road, likely to be $800m or less after adjusting for inflation, will somehow have allowed our workforce to build back and be bigger than what $839m delivers today? It seems like magical thinking, rather than science.”
Conflict of interest statement: “I work in the areas of Bioeconomy and Environment. I was on the Reference Group Advising MBIE and Ministers on the previous government’s reform, Te Ara Paerangi, which addressed the same issue as this reform but is no longer mentioned in providing guidance.”