Wellington
At the risk of displaying a Wellington-residential and Southland upbringing bias, thegovernment’s keenness for an Aucklandisation of our science and innovation strikes me as beingstupid.
In particular, the push to make (force even) the development of the former oil tank farm
Purely on an evidence-based front, there’s flaws in the argument that’s been put up for theQuarter.
Why would start-ups, one of the main elements that the Quarter’s meant to be trying to attract,be interested in locating themselves on one of the most expensive pieces of real estate in thecountry?
Start-ups start in garages and spare bedrooms, rundown warehouses and close to the sources ofsupply (of raw materials, brains, good distribution) that fit at the particular time of theirbeginning.
Start-ups don’t kick off in elaborate, over-designed (potential white elephants), and surelygovernment’s not suggesting a subsidised rental scheme!
Even if Industrial Research (as it even so slowly morphsinto an Advanced Technology Institute) was ‘encouraged’ to set up in the WQ, those wanting totap into its knowledge wouldn’t have to be co-located to access the brains. You don’t have to beonsite to have a meeting.
The other worry with the government’s Aucklandisation push for science and innovation is thatit is looking through the wrong end of the telescope.
Sure, some high-level manufacturing takes place there – but attempting to concentrate R&Dresources in the Queen City ignores the facts of the matter.
In a New Zealand environment that has a great scarcity of data, a recent working paper by
The 19 page document can be found
The management school recognised that analysing the [100] competition application forms
“represented a unique and potentially extremely useful insightful view of thecorporate innovation landscape”.
One particular feature they noted was that WYPNZ isolated firms with active innovative intent– that is, thinking about innovation ‘right now’ in order to apply.
The competition was also open of all-comers, not just those identified by another agency or bodyas having potential to turn innovative intent into value creation, or firms in need ofdevelopment.
All in all,
“we hope to have created a picture, in microcosm, of the landscape for corporateinnovation inNew Zealand.”
Again, check out the report for yourself.
But, to cut to the chase, and the first couple of 13 propositions (which VUW suggests could bethe basis for further possible research):
Proposition 1: No geographic region in New Zealand has more or less “innovativeintent”, or indeed innovative capability, than any other.
Proposition 2: IRL’s primary location in Wellington appears to have no significantbearing on encouraging or discouraging firms from any particular region to relate toit.
………. so, to draw a long bow.
Don’t go overly pushing Auckland as an engineered hotbed of science and innovation – it’san incorrect property play in the first instance, and unsubstantiated policy proposal in thesecond.
And for goodness sake government – let IRL get on with developing its ATI-inspired campus atGracefield.
In the continued absence of a sense of science and innovation direction (which will only beexacerbated with the MSI’s absorption into the super-ministry), the ongoing mucking around withwhat was IRL’s idea in the first place is bad for the country.
In other words, tell IRL what you want them to achieve, and let them get on with doing that byallocating its smart people resources in the way that best fits. Kicking off with a rebuild (of amodular design that can be replicated inChristchurchandAuckland) in Wellington is the sensibleoption.
If the argument is that New Zealand needs to act as a city of four million people, IRL’scurrent head office location is fine as demonstrated by the evidence.
Or to put it another way, let’s just get on and do stuff, without the Auckland bias.