Can we grow smarter?

In other words, how can New Zealand grow a smarter economy? Though science is the study’s main focus, the innovation ecosystem (every facet of an idea’s germination, from conception to market) encompasses any new products and services developed. The project develops previous work from the institute on growing the economy and is also a response to New Zealand’s poor showing in the innovation categories of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness rankings.

‘‘Productivity drives prosperity, and what we’ve observed in advanced economies is that the key driver of productivity, and therefore GDP per capita, is the effectiveness of what [the World Economic Forum] calls our ‘innovation factors’,’’ says institute director Rick Boven. These include the availability of scientists and engineers, how much companies spend on research and development, value chain participation, and the state of cluster development.

Though New Zealand placed 20th out of 133 countries in the latest Global Competitiveness Report, it was still in the bottom half of the 37 so - called ‘‘advanced economies’’. More worryingly, this ranking dropped to 23rd in innovation. New Zealand scored well for the quality of its scientific research (18) and university industry research collaboration (18), but poorly for company spending on research and development (31), government procurement of tech products (57) and availability of scientists and engineers (59).

Prime Minister John Key singled out innovation as key to boosting the country’s economic performance in his economic agenda speech in July, and Research, Science and Technology Minister Wayne Mapp said better linking the $745 million of current research, science and technology spending to commercial returns was a key focus for his ministry.