Science with 10-year vision

By SIMON COLLINS science reporter

The former Forest Research Institute is reinventing itself in a way which it says will help to reshape New Zealand's business base in the next decade.

The Crown-owned Rotorua company, which dropped the "institute" from its title in the 1990s, now aims to expand beyond forestry to become a world leader in "biomaterials".

Its new vision - "utilisation of renewable materials and products from plants" - includes making plastics, cosmetics, medicines, vaccines, speciality chemicals and fuels from trees and other plants.

It is reorganising most of its 375 staff into four new "transformational science platforms" and six "business units".

It advertised the top jobs in these 10 divisions in the Business Herald last week, applications to close next Friday.

"You have to forget about the existing business, and you have to see in transformational science you are creating opportunities for the country," said strategic development manager John Butcher.

"You are reconfiguring the business base for New Zealand 10 years out."

Chief executive Bryce Heard, who managed Tasman Forestry until 1996, said Forest Research was taking a long-term view of the future which few private companies could take.

"One of the problems I had as a corporate [at Tasman] is that you were split into your functional blocks," he said.

"So for a person growing trees, cutting them down and cutting them up, for me to get into the consumer market would have been stepping on the toes of Fletcher Building and Tasman Pulp and Paper.

"So the corporate structure doesn't lend itself to the value-chain way of thinking.

"That limited me in my nine years as a forestry manager. Coming in here, of course, you haven't got that constraint."

Butcher's strategic team worked with Auckland University Professor Wayne Cartwright to track global trends, including a long-term shift from making materials and fuels out of non-renewable minerals towards new materials and energy sources based on renewable plants and bacteria.

"It's a move from the hydrocarbon economy towards the carbohydrate economy," said Butcher.

"Forestry fits in here nicely. Wood and cotton are the two most widely used biomaterials. There is an opportunity for us to make a real contribution in the early stages."

SignaGen, a Forest Research subsidiary established in 1998 to provide DNA testing for the forestry industry, has already expanded into DNA testing for sheep and has a contract with Fonterra subsidiary ViaLactia to map DNA markers in key species of grass.

Research on effluent from pulp and paper mills has produced patents for new biodegradable plastics made from the mills' waste.

The new plan will assign between 80 and 100 staff to the basic science "platforms" of researching the cellular structure of plants, the roles of genes, using materials from wastes and developing new materials.

Heard said this would require a 10-year commitment. He and other Crown research institutes are negotiating with Science Minister Pete Hodgson and funding agencies to secure long-term funding of the key "transformational platforms".

"This whole idea could change the way science is funded in this country," Heard said.

But he also wants to draw in private sector partners who can work with the rest of the staff in the new business units to spin off new companies.

"The other message that comes out is that if you don't partner, you are dead - not just for organisations but for countries," said Butcher.

Heard said he wanted a mixture of internal and external people to head the new divisions. A former chief executive of Hamilton City Council who most recently managed Albany software company Manufact Data Systems, Keith Marshall, has been hired as chief operating officer commercial. But a Forest Research manager, Dr Tom Richardson, will be chief operating officer science.

Heard said his objective was to avoid redundancies, although "there could be the odd one".

The plan includes a six-figure provision to introduce a more "market-related" collective employment contract.

Forest Research members of the Public Service Association met last week to to debate the proposal.

Forest Research