By SIMON COLLINS
Biotechnology is the big winner in a long-awaited $110 million batch of research contracts approved by the taxpayer-funded Foundation for Research, Science and Technology.
The foundation has allocated almost $22 million to plant gene technologies, almost $20 million to naturally occurring "bioactives" and $1 million to studying the
risks of modified genes infecting other organisms and New Zealanders' attitudes to genetic modification.
Other areas being funded include climate change and other global environmental processes ($26 million), information and communications technologies (almost $10 million), renewable energy ($5 million) and commercially oriented health research (almost $5 million).
The winners include five out of six proposed research consortiums such as a planned joint venture between dairy company Fonterra and the Auckland and Otago Medical Schools to develop milk-based bioactives that strengthen bones and immune systems.
The details are not being disclosed until the contracts have been finalised.
Maori researchers are also big winners, with a 10-fold increase in the number of research projects that will have specific benefits for Maori - although they will still be well under 5 per cent of the foundation's total projects.
However, there are also losers in what foundation chief executive Gowan Pickering called "quite profound shifts"in funding.
Research on boosting efficiency and market access, mainly for pastoral farming and forestry, has been chopped by 30 per cent to $12 million.
The foundation's portfolio manager, Dr John Smart, said "transition arrangements" would be negotiated with researchers in these fields, which may involve spreading the cuts over several years.
The foundation believes that these are "mature" fields in which the industries themselves, such as farming and forestry companies, should take over research from the state.
A breakdown of funding for each researcher will not be available until late next month, but some of the agricultural and forestry research institutes could be net losers and universities net winners.
Dr Smart said the shift to targeting new products such as genetically modified medicines would increase the "risk profile" of foundation-funded research projects.
"We have changed the landscape. A number of them have the potential to be highly successful."
Some may take time.In other areas, the research on global environmental processes will include $1 million to reduce methane emissions in belching animals, and another $1 million shared between reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transport and improving energy efficiency.
The $5 million for renewable energy includes research on biofuels, geothermal energy, solar power, hydrogen fuel cells and "distributed generation", placing micro-generators based on renewable energy in individual homes and factories.
No wind energy research has been financed. Other funded projects include research on:
* Understanding the changing nature of communities.
* Factors affecting employment of low-income families.
* Social data available in New Zealand to enhance family and whanau wellbeing.
* Traditional knowledge and new uses of harakeke (flax).
* Web-based translations of Maori and English sentences.
* Tourism (five projects).
The foundation received bids of $324 million for research funding, including $74 million for bioactives and $34 million for plant gene technologies.
Dr Smart said this was in line with the usual rates of over-bidding.
The Foundation for Research, Science & Technology
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By SIMON COLLINS
Biotechnology is the big winner in a long-awaited $110 million batch of research contracts approved by the taxpayer-funded Foundation for Research, Science and Technology.
The foundation has allocated almost $22 million to plant gene technologies, almost $20 million to naturally occurring "bioactives" and $1 million to studying the
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