Another hub, focused on health and pandemic readiness, would bring together researchers from Victoria and Otago Universities, as well as the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR), Callaghan Innovation and the Malaghan Institute.
The third, involving experts from Victoria University along with GNS, Callaghan and Malaghan, would be based at a new research, technology and innovation park in Gracefield and focus on advanced manufacturing and materials, energy futures and biotech.
“Through all of this, we will link talented university students to industry and Crown Research Institutes (CRIs) and increase opportunities for industry training and applied PhDs for exciting careers in science and research,” Verrall said.
Verrall said that while the hubs would be based in the Wellington region, they’d benefit New Zealand as a whole.
“These hubs will place greater emphasis on innovation and create an environment that helps start-ups to grow and become significant contributors to the New Zealand economy through stronger co-ordination of innovation and commercialisation activities.
“This will include a significant investment in physical space and facilities to help entrepreneurs bring innovative new products to market.”
The next step was to finalise the programme business case so that construction could begin.
Elsewhere in the Budget was $55.2m targeted at research fellowships and training more PhD students.
“The fellowships will help retain and develop more than 260 future leaders of research, science and innovation in New Zealand over the next 10 years,” Verrall said.
“These expanded fellowships will also include dedicated awards for Māori and Pacific peoples to increase representation at all levels.”
Another $37.6m was being directed at New Zealand’s involvement in the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme – making the country one of the first outside Europe to offer researchers to the seven-year, multi-billion-dollar effort.
“This is new funding for New Zealand science and underlines our commitment to building a modern, future-focused research, science and innovation system.”
In December, the Government outlined a fresh set of national “research priorities” for the country, in a blueprint representing the largest rethink of New Zealand’s science system in 30 years.
Te Ara Paerangi has been largely welcomed by leading players, with cautious optimism the three-year makeover will tackle long-standing diversity gaps across our universities and institutes - particularly among under-represented Māori and Pasifika researchers.
Professor Nicola Gaston, co-director of the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, said the new Wellington hubs and the Horizon funding aligned well with the stated aims of Te Ara Paerangi, to increase collaboration and break down silos among research institutes and universities.
“I have been justifying the lack of new funding for science and research in recent successive budgets, on the basis of the sector reform process, Te Ara Paerangi, being a work in progress,” she said.
“This year, with redundancies continuing to wreak havoc across our university sector in particular, the priority has had to be getting new funding into the system – the opportunity cost of not doing so has simply gotten too large.”
She felt a “fundamental mistake” that’d been made over decades of research funding had been to “put the cart before the horse” by trying to fund outcomes rather than researchers.
“So many of the issues that we recognise in our research system – the lack of connectivity, barriers to collaboration, a lack of diversification – are simple consequences of the fact that it is too small,” she said.
“We have a very sparse network of researchers trying to cover a wide range of areas of expertise, which of course makes collaboration and connectivity hard.”
Professor Travis Glare, of Lincoln University’s Research Management Office, welcomed the Budget’s Tertiary subsidies and increases for te reo Māori and mātauranga Māori provision, in a sector that was struggling to provide quality education in the face of increasing costs.
“Support for increased enrolments in tertiary education also is a positive. These increases are not enough to keep up with the increasing costs, but at least help,” he said.
“There are also specific increases in funding for PhD and research fellowships, which will improve the pathway for emerging researchers.
“Again this is welcome, but there needs to be a similar increase in research funding to allow these newly trained researchers to continue with their careers.”
