Feature

Birth Pangs for Public Science

The DSIR (and FRI and MAFTech, and...) is dead.
Long live the Crown Research Institutes.

By Vicki Hyde, NZSM

After 65 years as this country's primary scientific research organisation, the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research is no more. Also gone are other government research facilities, including the Forest Research Institute, MAF's Technology Division and the Meteorological Service.

These groups have been swapped and shuffled to be officially reborn on July 1st as ten Crown Research Institutes. It's a process which has been fraught with controversy and criticism --  hardly surprising when the changes involve 5,000 people nationwide.

The restructuring was announced at the end of 1990 and since then it's been a frantic race to get the CRIs up and running by the July deadline. Even as little as one month before their debut, some institutes were yet to gain approval of their official names or announce an official home location.

There have been many delays. Setting up the CRI establishment boards took much longer than anticipated. The high proportion of accountants and lawyers selected led to an outcry from the scientific community. This was coupled with resentment of the abrupt letters of rejection received by scientific candidates.

When someone with years of both research and administrative experience, recognised in their field as a leading scientist, is told that they lack the necessary qualifications for such a position, you have to protest. So says one individual who nominated a respected science manager. The outcry over the poor handling of the process led to a review of board nominations to gain a more balanced representation.

The concept of a series of independent research institutes which would combine the research spread throughout a number of different departments had been greeted with enthusiasm. Scientists and managers could see that the establishment of institutes focused on identified sectors would prevent unnecessary duplication of work. It made sense to combine, for example, land management units from MAFTech, the FRI and various DSIR divisions.

"We all knew of examples of unnecessary duplication, and many of us were thoroughly frustrated with a `commercial' regime which, for example, required payment of phony dividends and payment of exhorbitant rentals on buildings already owned by the department, required rolling over of debts but not of profits, and which forbade us from holding equity in, or sharing profits with, joint enterprises," Dr Craig Tennant of DSIR Chemistry told the NZ Association of Scientists.

Getting out from under the restrictions of the Public Finance Act was seen as a bonus, enabling the institutes to promote technology transfer and to establish good commercial relationships.

Dr Geoff Page, chief executive of the industrial research CRI, is looking forward to being able to form partnerships and joint ventures to improve industry take-up and development of research results.

"The commercial freedoms we will have as a company will let us get closer than ever to New Zealand's industrial sector," he enthuses.

Science Companies

While the CRIs are Crown-owned limited liability companies, science minister Simon Upton emphasises that they will not be required to return profits to shareholding ministers. Rather, he sees the dividend in the form of the maintenance of scientific resources and the advancement of social and economic growth. The CRIs are to be a permanent part of the Crown Estate, says Upton, with no plans for privatisation.

The CRI Bill sets out five basic underlying principles requiring the institutes to:

• undertake research for the benefit of New Zealand
• pursue excellence in all activities
• promote the application of the results of research and of technological developments
• be good employers
• exhibit a sense of social responsibility

All agree that the sentiments are good ones, and could well produce a bright future for New Zealand science, but many qualms remain. Former DSIR scientist Matt McGlone is concerned that the CRIs have the potential to become nothing more than mediocre consultancies. An emphasis on commercial returns and capture by industry groups could lead to this, he warns.

Many of the CRIs are keen to foster relationships with other research organisations, both public and private, as well as with the universities. There will also be some competition between the universities and the CRIs. The question of university entrance into the common contestable funding pool remains open, forestalling, as yet, fights over limited financial resources. Human resources are another matter. The stable tenured positions offered by universities are now seen by many as much more desirable than the uncertain future of CRI positions.

The CRIs can be broadly divided into three groups. The natural resources institutes cover much of the basic research into the resources of water, land and the atmosphere. Four CRIs deal with the primary sector, focusing on the individual markets open to forest, horticulture, crops and pastoral agriculture. In the secondary and service sector are institutes dealing with social research, environmental health and industrial research.

DSIR Chemistry researchers were publicly bemused, and privately irate, that their division, the most commercially successful, was to be split apart. Calls for institutes based on scientific disciplines, rather than on market sectors, were dismissed.

Scientific "Surpluses"

During the run-up to the CRIs' establishment, the various units involved have been trying to streamline themselves so as to keep within their final financial constraints. This has meant a number of redundancies over the past two years, and served to extend the period of uncertainty and loss of morale amongst scientists. One CRI executive called the mismanagement of human resources "ghastly", saying that this, more than anything, has caused the greatest difficulties in changing over.

"Whether they are going to the CRIs or not, the science team staff will be relieved that the long period of uncertainty is over," said Sir James Stewart, chairman of the CRI Implementation Steering Committee. "The restructuring has been a long and complex exercise, and the waiting must have placed a good deal of stress on all those affected, whether scientific or support staff."

Scientists were told initially that all positions for scientific staff would be automatically rolled-over into the new institutes, and that it would only be the levels of support staff that would be re-evaluated. Because of the new funding regime, however, scientists, engineers, technicians and research associates have lost jobs. Early suggestions that it would be over 300 were countered with the announcement that just under 100 staff were "surplus".

"The science staff surpluses are not an outcome of the restructuring," said the CRI ISC, "but in part stem from chronic underfunding of science...Science departments had carried too many people for the money available."

The committee maintains that the redundancies are more a result of the new contestable bidding regime, put in place by the Foundation for Research Science and Technology, and changes in science priorities as determined by the associated ministry.

MORST and FRST

The Ministry of Research, Science and Technology was established to provide an independent source of science policy advice. The idea was to separate the advisory role from the funding role, and the latter became the responsibility of the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology.

Both appear to have had fairly thankless tasks, being on the receiving end of an often heavy barrage of criticism. One critic has suggested that, as a powerful centralised bureaucracy, it is MORST's role "to be loathed".

Basil Walker, MORST's chief executive, acknowledges that the ministry will always be a lightning rod for discontent. By providing a central resource of policy advice, Walker says, the ministry has acted to explain the important role of science to politicians who make the ultimate decisions.

"The politicians didn't understand what was going on," Walker states. He blames this lack of understanding for the decreasing levels of funding throughout the 80s. Under the new system, politicians can see what is happening and they know what they have to do, he says.

Many scientists are indignant that major upheavals in their organisations and research are apparently the result of politicians' ignorance and desire to be seen to be doing something.

"The latest exercise has nothing to do with the promotion of science but more to do with a near-fanatical determination to force it into the Procrustean bed of New Right ideology," charges one ex-government scientist.

For others, the restructuring is a thing that has been long overdue, allowing a rationalisation of resources and a trimming back of bureaucracy.

Malcolm Grant, of the atmosphere and water CRI, is pleased at losing the extra administrative layers and overheads that disappeared with DSIR Head Office. This independence is something welcomed by most CRIs, but it appears to have been offset by an increased bureaucracy involved in the funding process. Grant is happy that 90% of his CRI's work will continue to be funded, but he is concerned that getting funding or approval for the remaining 10% takes up a disproportionate amount of time.

Funding Root Problem

It's not necessarily the restructuring itself that is causing dissatisfaction. Rather, the root cause appears to be the new system of science funding established by FRST. The contestable system aims to fund research on the basis of merit and relevance to identified strategic priorities. The system has had relatively little support, which its supporters say stems from a lack of understanding about its functions.

"Wherever we've gone, we've found there's quite an ignorance about the process of the Foundation," says Ron Arbuckle, FRST's departing chairman. Scientists say that there's no surprise in that, and that the Foundation itself has compounded the problem with confusing signals, revamping of procedures and demands for large quantities of paperwork.

Suggestions that these are just teething problems led McGlone to respond that "such teething problems can take your head off".

"There are some winners and some losers," Arbuckle says. While it makes sense economically, that's small consolation to scientists who find they no longer have any research funding and, shortly after, no job. They argue that the CRIs, to establish and maintain reputations as centres of excellence, have to be able to support fundamental research, long-term research programmes and a stable workforce.

Grant is worried that political decisions concerning science priorities could have major impacts on how researchers manage their programmes.

"What if the government decides against environmental priorities?" he asks. Fortunately for his group, environmental issues have very strong political clout at the moment, so it's not something they are likely to have to face. Geological and geophysical scientists have not been so lucky, with losses of personnel and research programmes in their field.

Funding applications prior to the establishment of the CRIs saw the organisations involved tender for $341 million to cover research. They gained $238 million, $214 million of this for specific research under the public good science funding system. While PGSF levels for the 1992/93 financial year are 8% down on the previous year's allocation, the addition of non-specific funding will help bring in more money than last year to most CRIs.

"Some programmes had to miss out, but we had expected that, with the non-specific output funding and expected efficiency gains, the Institutes themselves would have been able to fund additional programmes as well as more science within existing programmes," says Arbuckle.

He maintains that plans to put 60% of science funding into long-term projects will provide a level of security that hasn't been available in the past. Scientists argue that funding the project, rather than the person, does not make for a secure working environment.

In addition, the designation of three or five years as "long-term" has not met with widespread support. Good science requires a much longer timeframe than that of political horizons. All agree, however, that this is much better than the initial one-year funding regimes. Arbuckle remains confident about the new system.

"The spirit of co-operation is very high," he says. "There [is] also a feeling that now the science system has been through extensive and traumatic change, it [is] time to settle down and make those changes work."

Vicki Hyde is the editor of New Zealand Science Monthly.