Now everyone wants to see the Advanced Technology Institute set up and thriving.
This ranges from the ATI’s establishment board, to science minister Steven Joyce, to (about tobe reformed) IRL, to the CRI and university scientists and commercialisers, to industry and the NZpublic.
A question that needs to be asked is whether ‘policy advice’ and officialdom is getting inthe way, hindering even, what is and will be an NZ-centric model to cranking up commercialisation ofour science, engineering and entrepreneurial resources.
A couple of illustrative points.
My (process and chemical) engineering brother, recently returned from Australia, was at afunction the other day, and met another policy person seconded from a government ministry to helpthe establishment unit.
My brother asked what it is that is that’s trying to be established? A vague non-answer.
Well, what will it help improve? Apparently, one thing is that instead of three possible doorsfor people/manufacturers wanting help to go through, there will be one door. Wow.
And then there’s the policy advice. The establishment unit is one source, MoBIE itself isanother, MED comments on everything and NZ Trade & Enterprise also provides such advice. (On theNZTE front, whether or not it does become rolled into the ATI function looks less likely by the dayseemingly).
Which brings us back to the main point that officialdom’s not doing us (NZ Inc) any favours inthe way it operates…..aided and abetted by the fact that ATI’s intended role is presently a lineof question marks, this ???????.
If the rumour that there are 4000 pages of cabinet papers about the ATI is true, that too is ascary thought.
What we all want out of ATI is a philosophy, a mouldable funnel and pathway of ideas and peopleacross the science, engineering, innovation and implementation spectrum.
ATI needs to address issues such as capital, pathways to market, partnering, and bringing on andin best expertise in quickly creating scaleable businesses (especially in addition to the personwith the original idea).
The danger with officialdom’s approach is it will invent answers for problems that don’texist, and, even worse, create solutions that cannibalise existing providers – both public andprivate.
The other danger of officiating our way to an ATI non-answer is it talks amongst itself.
The paucity of discussions with industry and science leaders by the establishment unit is oneindication of this. The ‘this is what we’re trying to achieve’ response that my brotherreceived is another illustration.
So, for all our sakes, let some of these clever people on the ATI establishment board use theircontacts, connections and links to alternative thinking to help develop unconventional models beforedeveloping answer(s).
Spread the intellectual focus away from how to adjust science capability (at this stage), andconcentrate on making more money from our R&D + entrepreneurs + routes to market.
Creating any more than broad policy at this stage is a mistake.
When we don’t know what ATI is going to do, creating oodles of policy is totally cart beforethe horse.
It is the default course of action.
What we’d all be grateful to see is a business plan/’this is what we’re going to do’created as a one-pager.
That way we can all clearly see and measure if we’re creating a structure that providessomething of value. (And if we don’t then we can quickly tweak it!).
Policy production doesn’t produce useful answers.
All it does is shift the deckchairs.
P.S. According to the first ATI