Science Media Centre

The Science Media Centre put questions on key science-related issues to the political parties ahead of the General Election scheduled to be held on September 23. This is the fourth time the SMC has canvassed political parties on their science-related policies; you can access previous election Q&As on our website – 2008, 2011, 2014. Click […]

Science was ignited as the fuel of economic growth, but the fame has gone out, writes Professor Jeff Tallon, physicist with The MacDiarmid Institute, in the NZ Herald. An excerpt (read in full): And it is inescapable, the Government needs to invest here much more heavily. We need to fund strategies, not projects. Where is […]

New Zealand businesses increased their research and development spending by more than 15 per cent in the last year, according to Statistics New Zealand. The findings come from the latest Business Operations Survey undertaken by Statistics. According to the survey, business spending on R&D has grown from $1.25 billion in 2014 to $1.44 billion in 2015. […]

New Zealand’s environmental performance is a mixed bag according the latest report from the OECD, with greenhouse gas emissions and waste disposal looking particularly poor compared to other developed countries. The Environment at a Glance 2015 report draws on international data to compare countries across a wide rang of environmental indicators. Some of the key […]

Does throwing more money into business R&D always create innovative new products and services? New research suggests the picture is more complex. Two separate papers, launched this week by economic and public policy institute Motu and the New Zealand Productivity Commission, examine the links between research and development (R&D) spending and the creation of new […]

Hamish Fletcher, the New Zealand Herald‘s business reporter, looks at the possible outcomes for the science sector ahead of today’s budget announcements. An excerpt (read in full here): Budget 2015: Grants boost likely to be R&D’s lot   Any Budget surprises for innovation expected to be geared towards growing business spending, says expert. Any surprise […]

The Science Media Centre put questions on key science-related issues to the political parties ahead of the General Election scheduled to be held on September 20.  This page has now been updated to include responses from the Maori Party. Please click on the links below to find the answers from responding political parties (or download […]

IBM today released its second Innovation Index revealing that New Zealand’s overall innovation rate increased three per cent in the four years to 2011, boosted by increased spending on research and Development during the global financial crisis. R&D expenditure grew at an average rate of 7.6 per cent per annum between 2007 and 2011, largely driven […]

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. The Prime Minister’s chief science adviser, Sir Peter […]

Writing in the Press, Prof John Fairweather of Lincoln University shares some of his insights into how innovation works in New Zealand. Prof Fairweather undertook a Government-funded research programme to identify conditions under which socio-technical networks best foster technology development, adoption and commercialisation. His perspective article in the Press gives an idea of what is […]