Wellington
Scientific academics shouldn’t be looking down their noses at their colleagues involved intechnological developments for industry according to RoyalSociety of New Zealand president Garth Carnaby.
Speaking at the NZ Association of Scientists conference, incollaboration with the Institute of Policy Studies at Victoria University, Carnaby said while thereare two different cultures between scientific research and research that is guided or needed byindustry, both are important for the country’s development.
“There’s a confusion in New Zealand about these two different systems as we’ve tended totreat them as one,” Carnaby says. “Unless we address this confusion, we will continue to have aninnovation system that underperforms and an economy that does not meet expectation,” he said in aconference theme that’s re-setting science and innovation for the next 20 years.
Carnaby says research for industry is often looked down upon by academics, such as those atuniversities, as being unworthy of their attention, while considering that there is too littleapplied research carried out in New Zealand.
For New Zealand’s high value manufacturing to be taken to scale, “scientists need to listento industry,” he says. Answering industry’s questions will require more generalists andmulti-disciplinary teams among scientists.
“The science community may regard it as heresy, but we want excellence in applied research aswell,” he says. “We need an army of them if we’re to catch up to Australia. The idea thattechnologists are involved in a second class activity that isn’t as intellectual as sciencediscovery is rubbish.”