Guarded response to AgResearch merger idea

By SIMON COLLINS

New Zealand's biggest crown research institute, AgResearch, wants to get back into bed with three others, 10 years after they were kicked out on their own from Government departments.

AgResearch chief executive Dr Keith Steele wants to merge his institute with the three other biologically based units - HortResearch, Crop and Food Research and Forest Research.

However, responses from his three would-be bedmates ranged from lukewarm to hostile.

Steele told the Business Herald that the sectoral split of institutes reflected "what New Zealand used to do historically" rather than "what it will do in the future".

"If New Zealand really wants to be competitive, it needs to think how it can bring together rather than dissipate its capabilities," he said.

The four biological institutes together spent $254.3 million in the year to June. AgResearch, spending $124.1 million, accounted for almost half of that.

Although they were created to serve their separate sectors, all are now involved broadly in "biotechnology", including genetic modification of animals at AgResearch and of plants at all four institutes to produce both foods and medicines.

Forest Research has recently redefined its field as new "biomaterials" of all kinds, not just from wood.

The Waikato University economist Dan Marsh has noted that spreading biotechnology research through eight of the country's nine crown research institutes could be seen as "a serious waste of resources".

Another report, issued by the Knowledge Wave Trust in September, criticised New Zealand's "desperately fragmented" research base and said mergers should be encouraged by making more research funding fully "contestable".

Massey University and three of the institutes - AgResearch, HortResearch and Crop and Food - already plan a joint Plant Biosciences Centre in Palmerston North, where they all have sizeable campuses.

AgResearch and HortResearch also share a campus at Ruakura, near Hamilton, where they will soon become part of a planned Waikato innovation park.

AgResearch's commercial arm, Celentis, is managing the sale of a facial eczema antidote that has been developed jointly by AgResearch and HortResearch, and Celentis wants to take on contracts to commercialise technology from all the other biological institutes and others.

"We'll be talking to the other CRIs. Forestry we are already talking to, and we'll be talking to Crop and Food," said Celentis chief executive Dr Stewart Washer.

"New HortResearch chief executive Paul McGilvary said he was doing a strategic review of that institute with consultant David Cullwick and did not rule anything out. But he was conscious that "we have to guard very, very strongly against loss of focus". " Crop and Food chief executive Paul Tocker said the benefits of co-operation could be gained by working together on specific projects without a full merger.

Forest Research head Bryce Heard said he had no understanding of what Steele was thinking about and therefore had no comment.