By DANIEL RIORDAN
The head of the country's biggest biotechnology company says the human and financial wealth locked up in scientific institutions needs releasing to the private sector if New Zealand is to have any chance of developing a competitive knowledge economy.
Genesis Research & Development managing director Jim Watson said crown research institutes and universities had some great scientists but morale was at an all-time low, mainly because they were based on business models which were not appropriate.
"I think our CRIs and universities have lost sight of what their core businesses should be or might be. Their vision is blurred."
Dr Watson was addressing about 100 people at a Futures Sector conference in Auckland organised by the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology and the Manufacturers Federation.
He called for an end to navel gazing.
"We don't have time to sit and brood and think and strategise.
"I feel a certain tiredness about conferences that deal with the future ... Unless we get on and do something about it, we're going to be conferencing till the end of this decade."
He said real progress to a knowledge economy required an unshackling of talented people and ideas.
"The bulk of our science and technology is tied up in a kind of bureaucratic blunderland ... But CRIs and universities aren't businesses and one shareholder is unlikely to be as good as many."
A smaller core group of clearly focused CRIs was needed.
"We seem to be hell-bent on locking things up as tightly as we can to prevent some kind of managerial disaster. But we need to take a chance.
"We should incentivise commercially viable science and technology teams to move from universities and CRIs to standalone businesses."
The new companies must be free to recruit from existing CRIs and universities, be able to license intellectual property from CRIs and universities, and encourage scientists to chance their arms by offering share options.
Dr Watson decried the absence of investment bankers at the conference - they and business leaders had been far more helpful to teaching Genesis how to expand than some Government groups.
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