NZ Foresight thrust spur to creativity

By Yoke Har Lee

The New Zealand approach of inviting stakeholders to define what kind of industries are to lead the country into the global market has proven to be far more effective than other Foresight initiatives in the world, says the chief executive of the Foundation for Science, Research and Technology, Dr Steve Thompson.

A total of 117 submissions had been received from all types of interest groups, unleashing a lot of creative thinking about how New Zealand industries could form part of the future global village.

Dr Thompson said the New Zealand approach contrasted sharply with the UK Foresight project, where work was done by the Government.

"The UK's Foresight process was very centrally choreographed. The Office of Science and Technology essentially named the sectors they want to deal with, named the panel responsible for the work, provided the secretariat and the result was an extremely wise, grammatically perfect and elegant report," he said.

"There was some implementation in those reports but basically it began to dissipate. While it was very wise, it did not have stakeholders buying it. New Zealand is 180 degrees away from that."

Dr Thompson said New Zealand went through an almost anarchic phase in the beginning.

"The Government kicked it off, then said to New Zealand, `Go and organise yourself' ... What it unleashed was, first of all, a bit of confusion. But secondly, that was followed by an incredible free form of creativity by stakeholders.

"The UK one dissipated, while the New Zealand one has the vehicle to deliver - the Public Good Science Fund - so we have the means to carry through all that."

The Government is expected to publish an outcome statement on the Foresight submissions by early next month.

Over the past few months, the foundation had been actively involved in getting stakeholders to talk about what work was needed to support the future of New Zealand's industries.

"I have visited probably 50 to 60 stakeholder groups in New Zealand, talking to them about the implementation stage," said Dr Thompson.

"We are telling these groups the Foresight strategies that they did, they didn't do it for nothing. We are about to use them again, to develop specific research portfolios to assist various sectors."

Where industries produced strategies that didn't look far enough ahead or where the panel looking into the strategies found weak links, groups would be asked to rework their thinking, with the foundation playing the role of a facilitator and broker.

"There could be a group which might not have such a clear view of where it wants to go. There could be areas where the group produced a strategy that doesn't look that far forward; it only looks a year ahead. Where some work needs to be done to further elucidate this strategy, we would be using brokering meetings to do that."

Dr Thompson said because industries were encouraged to think of themselves outside their traditional boundaries, new industries could result.

"The sheep and dairy sector, for instance, wasn't invited to think of themselves in their traditional roles but as the food and fibre sector. We don't want to develop structures to fossilise the old sectors."