Wellington
It was called 'Inside Innovation', but Wellington's policy-peoples' group hug could have just aseasily been called 'Insider Innovation'.
It was high level stuff, leavened with a presentation by Weta Digital.
Part of the basis of the Tuesday half-day event was an OECD presentation comparing New Zealand tointernational counterparts - which across most of its metrics found us middling, at best.
It was also a chance to review how much progress had been made on
Science Minister Wayne Mapp made the point that since then there has been:
1.A betterstrategic direction for CRIs
2.More support for basic and applied research
3.Improvedsupport for business R&D
4.A clearer strategy across the innovation interface
5.Improved co-ordination between government agencies
All this is a work in progress; and as such hard to refute.
Mapp's main contention is that what has occurred on National's shift is a change in kiwi mindsetaround innovation and its role in economic growth.
There will be more on some of the OECD's (latest) NZ findings, but other points pulled from theforum were:
Andrew Clelland
- IPENZ (point/question made from the floor)
•Theadoption and adaptation of technology is increasingly seen from around the globe; everyone'sborrowing from everyone else. Finland, as an example, has established 'listening posts' in globalhotspots such as Silicon Valley and St Petersburg
Peter Gluckman
- Chief science adviser (said before, but worth repeating)
•NZ's struggling to lift game from that of a frontier society. An anti-intellectualism meansthere's lack of a rigorous debate around a number of important strategic issues
•NZ shoulddevelop early stage science/research alliances with other countries
•Intense regional andcity parochialism means expertise is diffuse in NZ, with little clustering
•Needs to be more'permeability' allowing clever people to move between academia/business/government
•Shouldwe look to more strategic rather than contestible funding?
Phil O'Reilly
- Business New Zealand
•When talking about 'innovation'the questions to be asked are "to what purpose, with what future?" It is important that NZ decideshow to play in this space rather than just sloganising
John Key
- Prime Minister
•We need to be more aggressive about where wethink we want to go (from an innovation and economic point of view)