The government may have signaled that the Crown Research Institutes aren’t as obliged as they have been in the past to fire ‘profits’ back to their owner, but that shouldn’t stop New Zealand checking out how well they’ve performed in the past year.
With all the CRI’s annual reports showing up at once, it can be difficult to have a handle on what their performance has been.
A breakdown of the reports, along with selected highlights of the CRIs consider that they're delivering, show a research sector looking to engage more with its core customers and clients.
As usual all the CRIs reported in different ways, highlighting areas they considered significant.
Scion
Before-tax profit of $3.240m, but a one-off tax adjustment of $3.170m
meant a net loss of $0.978m for the year. Four goals:
• Increase the value and profitability
of NZ’s forests
• Optimise the value of marginal land
• Accelerate development of
bioproducts from renewable resources
• Maximise the quality and impact of Scion’s
science
AgResearch
Surplus before tax of $2m, but one-off removal of tax
depreciation on buildings required an $11m adjustment, for a net loss after tax of -$9m. It is
concentrating on five major areas of opportunity:
• Help create the future dairy industry
• Help create the future meat industries
• Help create the future textiles and
biomaterials industries
• Help achieve a pest and disease-free NZ
• Enable capacity
for change in agriculture and its future communities
Plant & Food Research
Operating profit of $5.544m, impairment of profit
and one-off adjustments resulted in net loss of $5.683m. Concentrating its efforts on:
• Better cultivars faster
• Residue-free pest and disease control
• More
sustainable and profitable systems
• Proprietary foods with price premiums
Institute of Environmental Science and Research
Profit before tax of
$4.501m, adjustments due to tax changes resulted in net loss of $0.518m. Provides science advice and
services to government agencies, local authorities and the private sector, with core initiatives
in:
• Intelligent systems
• Forensic
• Environmental health
• Social
science
Landcare Research
Surplus before tax of $2.905m, adjustments due to
depreciation changes resulted in net loss of $1.323m. Core expertise in:
• Biosystematics and
nationally significant biological collections
• Terrestrial and freshwater ecosystem
processes
• National vegetation monitoring systems
• Environmental assessments and
management
• Infomatics and integrative modeling capability
• Policy advice and
evaluation
Industrial Research Ltd.
Surplus before tax of $2.158m, adjustments for
building depreciation resulted in a net surplus after tax of $0.168m. During the year brought its
seven science groups under three clusters:
• Advanced manufacturing technologies – energy
and materials group, engineering and applied physics group, high temperature superconductors
group
• Industrial biotechnologies – carbohydrate chemistry group, GlycoSyn, integrated
bioactive technologies group
• Measurement standards laboratory
GNS Science
Profit before tax of $2.384m, profit after tax of $1.048m. Came
up with 50 specific ways it delivers benefits to NZ, which can be summarised as:
• Security
and wealth from energy, mineral and water resources
• Mitigation of the economic and social
effects of geological hazards
• Development of new technologies such as nano-scale devices
and non-invasive scanning
NIWA
Earnings before interest and tax of $9.5m, depreciation changes
resulted in net surplus after tax of $4.5m. Generates economic benefit for NZ through:
• Using its knowledge to help others derive economic benefit from the efficient and effective
use of NZ’s natural resources and infrastructure
• Providing solutions that reduce or
eliminate risks from natural or human-induced environmental impacts on economic activities
• Conducting technical and market assessments of business opportunities arising from its
science, so that investment risk is better understood
• Being open to joint ventures with the
private sector where this encourages start-up of new economic activity
• Working
collaboratively with other parts of government to ensure that first adopters are appropriately
supported and that government investment is aligned and effective