Genius ReFi Relaunch

Posted on Sunday, 22 March, 2026 by Paul Spence

Following a recent reorganisation of New Zealand’s science research institution structure, the government announced a mandated new pathway for commercialisation of publicly funded science and technology research, starting in 2026. Core funding for research has not increased however. So now is the perfect time to re-launch Genius ReFi our collaborative platform for researchers, investors, entrepreneurs and industry players. Genius ReFi is a new way to meet co-founders, test ideas, seek advice and secure investment for early stage science research based projects with commercial potential.

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Although proudly New Zealand based, we are also open to working with researchers, funders and partners in a catchment spanning Europe – Middle East – Indo-Pacific. These regions are particularly exciting thanks to notable research clusters in renewable energy, life sciences, agritech, fintech, as well as developing AI infrastructure to support all of the above. We also find some of our inspiration in the tales of explorers from the 18th Century who pioneered trade across the region of the world.

New Zealand science and technology Minister, Dr Shane Reti says that a more consistent national approach to intellectual property management is needed in order to reward scientist inventors directly and open up new opportunities for commercialisation. For a small, cash-strapped economy that currently achieves about half the average OECD investment rate into research, science and technology (RS&T), this move can only be beneficial.

The new policy is partially, modelled on the University of Waterloo, Canada approach to commercialisation. Key aspects include that university researchers will have the first right to commercialise their inventions with the option of operating independently or working with their institution for support. University equity in spin-outs will be capped at around 5-10%, so inventors retain the majority of benefits, whilst incentivizing external capital investments. However, public research organisations outside of universities will retain first rights to market discoveries. If they choose not to pursue, researcher inventors may then proceed in their own capacity. The policy marks a substantial change in New Zealand government expectations around achieving a better economic return on publicly funded science.

There are one or two other fish hooks. Unlike the “Waterloo model”, New Zealand’s (new) model gives researchers a first right to commercialise, but not automatic ownership. This is open to negotiation of course. Also, where research or inventions draw upon multiple grants, different parts of the same project may sit under different IP regimes. Ownership can only transfer after disclosure, negotiation and classification. Additional complexity such as this will require careful thinking through by researchers. Would this give typically slow moving research institutions and universities an opportunity to hinder progress? In which case, nothing has really changed.

In a highly dynamic global economy, New Zealand cannot continue to rely on earning a living predominantly from exporting largely unprocessed primary commodities. To secure our future, we must move up the value chain and convert more of our research ideas into global enterprises. Innovation cycles are increasingly shorter so research organisations must act quickly on new knowledge, With geopolitical tensions, climate change and a pending energy crisis – this is more important than ever.

Join the Genius ReFi community

Paul Spence is a commentator, researcher and a part-time university assistant lecturer in commerce and management. A previous co-founder of a successful New Zealand based global technology venture, co-founder and director of Creative Forest, principal at GeniusNet Research & GeniusReFi and a startup advisor. You can follow Paul on BlueSky @GeniusReFi or Twitter/X @GeniusNet

Binary Thinking Distorts Innovation Hub Debate

Posted on Monday, 2 June, 2025 by Paul Spence

Clos Luce Amboise During our travels over the last few weeks I have been assiduously avoiding all New Zealand media and political commentary. We are such a binary thinking and inwards looking nation, it is nice to have a break from it. But I couldn’t avoid seeing the recent remarks from Mayor Brown and Peter Gluckman both alluding to Auckland’s greatness as a “centre for innovation” whilst lobbying (of course) for government support.

Yes the city is home to some amazing tech companies, clever people and is the closest thing we’ve got to a global city. Yes, innovation (in the form of patents) has traditionally been greatest in cities with large populations, agglomerations of industries and multiple high class education facilities. But the world is changing. Digital communications plus the rise of AI and technologies such as blockchain mean you can also build hugely valuable companies with a small distributed team. I think this is something that is often lost in the conversation because we tend to focus on tangible products like rockets or vegan ice-cream.

Here in Europe the EU is actively looking at how to get more innovation happening in the regions, away from noisy crowded cities. This is proving difficult because entrepreneurs tend to cluster where capital is more abundant, even if it means sacrificing lifestyle for a period of time. Paris, Barcelona, London and Berlin are currently the main foci. But will this change as distributed forms of capital raising become more established? Would a distributed innovation approach make more sense?

I mentioned binary thinking earlier. It’s something that holds us back. The concept that economic activity is a zero sum game for example. There always has to be a regional winner or loser. Or equity for one race or social group being at the expense of another. Outside of the current American administration warped mindset perhaps, it’s not how the real world actually operates.

Above is an image from Clos Luce, Amboise, France where Leonardo da Vinci spent the last years of his life. It was certainly a base for innovative thinking of the day. But even then, he succeeded through working with remote teams of talent on projects commissioned from all over Europe – with the enduring patronage of King Francois I. An early form of distributed innovation model.

[ This article was originally published on my LinkedIn channel ]

Paul Spence is a commentator, researcher and a part-time university commerce and management teaching assistant. A previous co-founder of a successful New Zealand based global technology venture, co-founder and director of Creative Forest, principal at GeniusNet Research & GeniusReFi and a startup advisor. You can follow Paul on Twitter/X @GeniusNet

It’s Alive!

Posted on Monday, 29 July, 2024 by Paul Spence

Alps1 My apologies for the radio silence lately. It has been a huge year personally and professionally with a lot of change, many challenges and some big plans finally starting to coalesce. One aspect of this has been our efforts bringing Genius ReFi to life.

Genius Refi is a global collaboration space and news site for researchers, entrepreneurs, investors and industry, with a focus on new ventures deploying regenerative science.

Only around 20-30% of initial science research proposals in universities worldwide actually get funded and only a small proportion of this gets commercialised. Here in New Zealand, compared to other OECD nations, we are doing about half the typical public investment in research science and technology (RS&T) within our underfunded universities. A lot of research is not making it out of the lab at a time when we need to be delivering a great many more solutions for emissions reduction, food sufficiency, environmental regeneration, renewable energy, disease and much more.

So Genius ReFi was born to validate whether or not we could build a (global) community of interest and collaboration space around these needs. Phase 1 is simply a collection of short but inspirational global news stories from me about science research being translated into regenerative products and services. Sitting on our little islands in the South West Pacific, we sometimes forget that 99.8% of business actually takes place outside our shores. So it is good to get insights into what other economies are doing with their RS&T settings whilst receiving inspiration from tech ventures that are out there doing it!

There is another element to this. Increasing the convergence of researchers, entrepreneurs, investors and industry. Because most published science is closed source and researchers are often not entrepreneurs themselves, we don’t know how many commercial opportunities have been missed in the past. In the future some areas of science research are likely to become more open and decentralised. Imagine if we could leverage this and deliver double the amount of science research in the form of scalable, viable businesses that have a regenerative effect on our world. There’s never been a more important task for humanity.

Please join the Genius ReFi Discord channel and collaboration forum.

Paul Spence is a commentator, researcher and a part-time university commerce and management lecturer. A previous co-founder of a successful New Zealand based global technology venture, co-founder and director of Creative Forest, principal at GeniusNet Research & GeniusReFi and a startup advisor. You can follow Paul on Twitter/X @GeniusNet or sign up for a free weekly digest of startup, tech and innovation related events co-curated by him through New Zealand Startup Digest.

Can We Stop The Rot?

Posted on Thursday, 28 March, 2024 by Paul Spence

P1080304 New Zealand faces a polycrisis due to decades of under-investment in public infrastructure. Indicative of this malaise are multiple failing infrastructures, over-stretched health services, decaying school buildings and unsafe civic spaces throughout the country. Stopping the rot will require raising our ambition as a nation and improving productivity through a higher value economy.

For too long our economic performance has been linked to an over-dependence on relatively low value commodities and tourism. As part of its quickfire raffle of “first 100 days” opportunities, the government is looking to “deliberately disrupt the system” by fast tracking gold mines, open-cast coal mining, property developments and bigger dairy farms, to name a few. Unfortunately these kinds of projects mostly lock us into even greater dependence on low value commodity based industries that do not generate the returns required to substantially lift productivity. But doesn’t this help us improve our gross domestic product (GDP)? Yes it does, but the benefits are not shared equitably, with returns often heading directly offshore.

Multi-factor productivity (MFP), on the other hand, represents residual economic growth due to factors (other than labour or capital) such as technological advancements, improved management practices, and a better-skilled workforce. MFP illustrates how successful a nation is at innovating and transforming resources into high value outputs. Over the last two decades or so New Zealand performed terribly compared to other OECD nations on this measure. Arguably, MFP is also the slice of the economic pie that allows governments to steadily improve the quality of public services and investment, as real wealth increases and tax receipts grow. Clearly we are heading in the opposite direction at present.

Quidnet Ventures managing director Mark Bregman illustrated the situation in a recent article discussing the innovation gap. We need to move to an “abundance mindset” and get over our hangups such as misplaced nationalism and the current reluctance of research institutions to back science that has commercial potential, he asserts. Important because one of the keys to creating high value economic returns lies in homegrown research that has future commercial potential. But getting these projects off the ground has always been problematic for a number of reasons, including funding constraints, institutional bureaucracy and lack of entrepreneurial mindset. How we approach science commercialisation must change.

With the nebulus “Te Paerangi – Future Pathways” report now mercifully euthanised by the Science Minister a new plan for research, science and technology now needs to be found. This time a sensible discussion about commercialisation must be included. To this end, the freshly minted Science System Advisory Group and University Advisory Group have been tasked with delivering a new strategic plan for transforming the science and university sectors. This will include (yet another) review of the performance based research fund (PBRF), the contentious pot of public funding that tends to favour larger universities with greater output, rather than promoting innovation or supporting the most important areas of research for society.

But none of this will matter unless we eliminate the institutional and financial roadblocks that are preventing research getting out of the lab and into the commercial sphere. The current model is simply not working at sufficient scale or speed.

Like all good researchers, we are testing some hypotheses around disrupting the status quo and creating more value for entrepreneurial science researchers. Feedback is welcome. To find out more about GeniusReFi – please join us here.

Image credit: Renea Mackie

Data source: Figure NZ under Creative Commons Licence 4.0

Ghost In The Machine

Posted on Saturday, 2 December, 2023 by Paul Spence

The author pitching at Lightning Lab Electric 2017

I first clapped my ears on Ghost In The Machine, the fourth album in the illustrious career of British rock band The Police, as a spotty faced teenager. The cover art for that album features images of three musicians depicted as a glitchy digital display, alluding to the concept of the human mind taking on a digital persona. Rather prescient when you consider that digital music required a stage full of computing power and miles of spaghetti wiring at the time and that this was almost 15 years before public internet arose. Artificial intelligence existed only in the fertile imaginations of authors such as Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke and their readers. So what does the future hold for digital ghosts and how do we get our timing right in what is today a rapidly evolving field?

Fast forward to 2017 and I was about to experience a brief rock star moment of my own as I spent the most terrifying five minutes of my life presenting to an audience of corporate bigwigs and various supporters. The kernel of that pitch was that machine based technologies would become integral to utilities services management. Nobody got the point and thanks to the conservative nature of the energy industry incumbents, who were sponsoring our accelerator, the project sank without a trace. We had many”learnings” along the way as a team however and I’m glad I participated.

Only six years later, AI is rapidly embedding in almost every sector and obscene sums are being invested in companies providing a vast array of offerings. For starters the venture capital industry itself is being disrupted by artificial intelligence. Deployment of capital into AI is growing faster than almost every other technology sector right now, according to industry monitor Carta. Notwithstanding some concerns over governance, AI looks set to play an increasing role in our lives.

Timing is a big part of building a successful venture. Sometimes timing is even the most significant factor, regardless of the quality of the team or the idea. I’ve got the timing wrong on more than a few occasions in my life. Ideas alone are worthless without good execution and a bit of good luck as well. In most cases, failing fast is the best possible outcome. If AI really is the ghost in the machine and the timing is right now, I wonder if it will help us be more effective entrepreneurs, govern more wisely and be better guardians of the planet?

Paul Spence is a commentator, researcher and serial entrepreneur, a previous co-founder of a successful New Zealand based global technology venture, co-founder and director of Creative Forest, principal at GeniusNet Research & Genius Refi and previously an advisor at ThincLab Canterbury You can follow Paul on Twitter/X @GeniusNet or sign up for a free weekly digest of startup, tech and innovation related events co-curated by him through New Zealand Startup Digest.

Bringing Change To The Top Table

Posted on Thursday, 29 June, 2023 by Paul Spence

Lyttleton Harbour, Christchurch

Recently I attended a public discussion delving into “Otautahi Christchurch as an Innovation Hub”. It’s no secret that the city has confronted numerous challenges over the last decade or so. From devastating earthquakes to wildfires and a mass shooting. One could be forgiven for thinking that the place was on its knees. But it’s not. As the central city was being rebuilt, a core group of activators played a pivotal role through charting a course with innovation and collaboration at its core. Now the city is thriving. What if we germinated that approach into central government?

A number of the aforementioned group were present at the recent discussion event. Not the least of these was Raj Manji, who convened the session. As a former Christchurch City Councillor and tireless advocate for the city, Manji is no stranger to the challenges of navigating government processes in difficult times. He’s also a global thinker who takes action and attracts smart people with fresh ideas into his sphere of influence.

These are attributes that seem sadly lacking in many of our current politicians, including those who are likely to be in charge once the face of government changes in October. As The Opportunities Party (TOP) leader, Manji has a real shot at securing the Ilam seat at the general election. This would be a game changer because, under MMP, successful electorate winners get to “tag and drag” along some of their party list candidates. Potentially this means TOP could play a huge part in shaping the next government.

Why is this significant? It’s pretty clear that our current government has run its course and the wheels are falling off the proverbial wagon. Not a week passes where there isn’t either a dramatic exit or a revelation of bad behaviour by Ministers or coalition partner MPs. The present incumbents performed admirably during the pandemic, but the world has now moved on. History has also shown that governing parties very rarely secure three consecutive terms in New Zealand. For its part, the Opposition, whilst more disciplined than before, seem unable to generate intelligent policy or outline a coherent plan. Political change of some form is undoubtedly on the way. The question is – how do we optimise that change?

By standing up and supporting TOP I’m putting a stake in the ground in an effort to facilitate an optimal outcome. We desperately need fresh thinking and evidence based policy driven by responsible adults. If TOP fails to win a place at the table, we face the possibility of an unstable coalition underwritten by dogma and driven by the smug, sneering faces of the more extremist minor parties. Parties that do not necessarily have the interests of ALL New Zealanders at heart. This would be disastrous at this pivotal moment in history when society must act collectively to confront significant global issues.

Paul Spence is a commentator, researcher and serial entrepreneur, a previous co-founder of a successful New Zealand based global technology venture, co-founder and director of Creative Forest, principal at GeniusNet Research & Genius Refi and previously an advisor at ThincLab Canterbury. You can follow Paul on Twitter @GeniusNet or sign up for a free weekly digest of startup, tech and innovation related events co-curated by him through New Zealand Startup Digest.

Bite Me!

Posted on Tuesday, 18 October, 2022 by Paul Spence

bite me I was in a community call today contributing to the good work of the NZ Startup Council. It wasn’t long before somebody popped the “diversity question” into the conversation, complaining that women, migrants and people of colour can’t get help with their startups and do not get a fair hearing from investors in New Zealand. If that is true, I want to do something about it!

For those of you who don’t know me, I’ve been active in the NZ tech community for around 20 years and I’ve seen a lot of bullshitters come and go. I’ve started three companies. One was a great success that we bootstrapped and exited in 2019, another tanked during acceleration and another one ticks along and generates a bit of cash here and there. So I’ve been around the block a few times – as they say.

BITE ME! – Building In The Ecosystem for Migrant Entrepreneurs!

At present I’m a part-time advisor at University of Canterbury incubator ThincLab. I’ve worked with a huge diversity of founders. Young students, women founders, Maori. Founders from all over the world. Germany, Iran, Pakistan, India, Japan, Ukraine, China, United States, France… the list goes on. I’ve especially enjoyed working with founders who identify as neuro-diverse. We certainly have an amazingly diverse group of founders here in Canterbury. Perhaps it is not the case elsewhere?

In startup land it’s important to look beyond our tiny isolated little islands from the outset. A lot of Kiwi founders don’t get this. So diverse founders and especially skilled migrant entrepreneurs bring huge value to our ecosystem. I’ve even started companies with a few of them. So it grinds my gears when I hear people complaining about the “lack of diversity” in our startup ecosystem.

Supporting our skilled migrant entrepreneurs is the fastest way to grow an even more diverse ecosystem, whilst building high value, scalable startups that contribute tangible economic value.

Take a look at We Love Local for example, a corporate gift box provider founded by my friends from Mauritius and Germany. They’ve been growing fast and have received multi-award recognition for their business which was started from scratch only a few years ago. How about Swallowing Technologies. Migrant female founder from academia commercialising her research globally. Caterway, my friends from Japan and Ukraine serving the corporate catering market.

So I’m putting my money where my mouth is by offering a free advisory session.

If you are a New Zealand based e-commerce, cleantech, foodtech, edtech or fintech (especially fintech) migrant founder struggling to make connections, recently arrived or just need some objective feedback on your project. Pitch me! I don’t care if you have lizard skin and shoot purple streamers from your arse. I’ve seen it all, trust me! What I do care about is your ability to execute, sharp intelligence, that you have technical skills and have some kind of workable business model. Oh and a sense of humour and a willingness to listen would definitely be useful.

Let’s talk and see where it leads. Reach me on Twitter or LinkedIn.

If I can’t help – I will probably know someone else who can.

Paul Spence is a commentator and serial entrepreneur, a previous co-founder of a successful New Zealand based global technology venture, co-founder and director of Creative Forest, principal at GeniusNet Research & Genius ReFi and previously an advisor at ThincLab Canterbury. You can follow Paul on Twitter @GeniusNet or sign up for a free weekly digest of startup, tech and innovation related events co-curated by him through New Zealand Startup Digest.

Where Talent Wants To Live

Posted on Wednesday, 22 June, 2022 by Paul Spence

FFA overall winners SuperPro with advisor Paul Spence.

Over a decade ago MacDiarmid Institute founder, renown physicist and technology entrepreneur the late Professor Sir Paul Callaghan proclaimed that we needed to make New Zealand “the place where talent wants to live”. This week’s result from the Food, Fibre & Agritech Supernode Challenge suggests we have reasons to be optimistic.

During the last few weeks it has been my great pleasure to be mentoring some of the teams involved in the 2022 Food, Fibre and Agritech Supernode Challenge accelerator programme, in my capacity as an advisor with ThincLab Canterbury. The Challenge, supported by ChristchurchNZ, KiwiNet and the Canterbury Mayoral Forum seeks to uncover innovative ideas with commercalisation potential from across research and business. Notably environmental sustainability has been a key theme that we asked applicants to address. 36 applications were whittled down to 24 participating teams, of which 12 finalists were selected.

Canterbury has a long and rich association with agricultural and is home to two universities and numerous land based research institutions. So there is no shortage of talent on offer. It has been an absolute thrill to see our young skilled migrants strongly represented among the participants in this programme. For many of them it has been a steep learning curve stepping out of the research lab and grappling with the fundamentals of business for the first time. But in every case they have grasped the opportunity and run with it.

Challenge overall winners Mahnaz Shaverdi and Associate Professor Ken Morison are food process engineering researchers from the University of Canterbury with big plans for turning plain old pea protein into a more desirable food source. Shaverdi moved from Iran with the aim of studying and raising her young family in New Zealand and Morison is a research engineer who returned to work in the dairy industry after completing his doctorate at Imperial College in London. Commercialisation of their research is timely. Plant-based ingredients are one of the fastest growing food categories globally, as witnessed through the recent investment by Khosla Ventures in Canterbury plant protein processor Leaft Foods.

Some commentators have been worrying lately that our technology startup ecosystem lacks diversity. But at a time when the world needs many bright minds to be working on solving a myriad of social, economic and environmental problems that confront us, it is exciting to know that our skilled migrants are making an increasingly significant contribution. This is a success story that we rarely hear about and that needs to be told more often. I’m sure Sir Paul Callaghan would be encouraged by this progress.

Paul Spence is a commentator and serial entrepreneur, a recently exited co-founder of a New Zealand based technology venture, a co-founder and director of Creative Forest, principal at GeniusNet Research and an advisor at ThincLab Canterbury. You can follow Paul on Twitter @GeniusNet or sign up for a free weekly digest of startup, tech and innovation related events curated by him through New Zealand Startup Digest.

Free the 99

Posted on Sunday, 3 April, 2022 by Paul Spence

akaroa3 They called it the slap that reverberated around the world. A wealthy and privileged, angry man arrogantly displaying his lack of respect for a long established institution and the faithful community that had blindly supported him. No, I’m not referring to the infamous Oscars night incident, I’m talking about Grant Dalton’s acceptance of an offer from the city of Barcelona to host and fund the 2024 Americas Cup yacht race.

In 2017 a glowingly optimistic report from the Ministry for Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) estimated that delivery of the Americas Cup event would bring in $600 million to $1 billion in benefits to the New Zealand economy. A more recent post-event report estimated that less than half of the $348 million public investment was returned in economic benefits during the 2021 event. The New Zealand government share of the funding was $133 million.

In fairness nobody forecast that the event would fall amidst a global disease pandemic. It is a testament to local organisers (and the success of the government’s pandemic response) that the event ran at all in fact. It is claimed that 68 million global viewers watched the televised component of the event and almost 39,000 (mostly domestic) visitors provided a much needed boost to the Auckland regional economy. But the taxpayer investment in the event came with no guarantees that Team New Zealand would opt for the 2024 challenge to be held in New Zealand and despite a further $99 million offered by the New Zealand government, hard man Dalton predictably followed the big money elsewhere.

That’s a shame for Auckland. But in light of some commentators complaining about the elitist nature of the sport, perhaps it is not worth throwing more good money after bad. In the meantime, about the same time the report on outcomes of their $133 million stake was being released by MBIE, the Ministry was also taking a decision to actually reduce their $3 million annual investment in the local innovation ecosystem. Founder incubators will be disestablished from June this year and it is already known that some will receive no further government funding.

Founder incubators were once at the heart of the innovation ecosystem, providing a basis for entrepreneur capability building, a channel for investment flows and a pipeline of high tech startups that added long term, high value jobs to our economy. Not as glamorous as yacht races or movies, but creating sustainable value that persisted long after the initial public investment. Last month I explained how our neighbours and competitors across Asia-Pacific have begun to reap the rewards of long term ecosystem investment amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars.

Which brings me back to the $99 million already budgeted for the 2024 Americas Cup investment. Would it not be more valuable to now allocate those funds towards developing our local innovation ecosystem? New Zealand is finally beginning to gain some traction in attracting foreign startup investors and we have a wealth of homegrown entrepreneurial talent ready to take on meaty global problems in areas such as climate, food and health. We need to capitalise on this opportunity as quickly as possible. Surely it is now time to invest in creating sustainable economic opportunities, rather than one off vanity events?

Paul Spence is a commentator and serial entrepreneur, a recently exited co-founder of a New Zealand based technology venture, a co-founder and director of Creative Forest, principal at GeniusNet Research and an advisor at ThincLab. You can follow Paul on Twitter @GeniusNet or sign up for a free weekly digest of startup, tech and innovation related events curated by him through New Zealand Startup Digest.

A Helping Hand Needed For Our Researcher Entrepreneurs

Posted on Thursday, 17 March, 2022 by Paul Spence

Source: Wikimedia Commons

It was fun this week attending the Global Entrepreneurship Network NZ Unconference which was hosted in a completely virtual environment. GEN NZ provides a community setting to engage in discussion and take action around promoting entrepreneurship. This article comprises the basis of my pre-recorded flash talk.

During the two years that I have spent at ThincLab Canterbury, we have supported dozens of (mostly young) entrepreneurs to explore their passions through our pipeline from the wonderful UC Summer Startup programme and we have assisted a number of early stage research based ventures founded by students and academics. This has led to over $10 million in capital being raised and the creation of many new high value jobs for our region. But there is a lot more work to do.

The European Union has recently launched the world’s largest and most ambitious multinational research and innovation programme Horizon Europe, investing almost 100 Billion Euros in “goal oriented research missions”. A special “innovation council” has an additional 10 Billion Euros to “fast track” innovations to market, including investment, incubation and advisory. We don’t have those kind of budgets here of course, but what is notable is that 10% of the public investment purse is focused on addressing downstream commercialisation under this initiative.

Notwithstanding the excellent work of organisations such as KiwiNet and MacDiarmid, there is quite limited support for entrepreneurial researchers here in New Zealand. In a recent article discussing the government review of research, science and innovation, Callaghan Innovation CEO Vic Crone argued that publicly funded research requires better and more commercialisation pathways.” Yet the already microscopic funding pool for incubators (including those connected with universities) was actually reduced this year and many providers have already been excluded from further participation. The pathways are actually receding.

We all understand the need to move our economy towards high value, less polluting industries. We also now know that this will be the biggest economic opportunity of our lifetimes. But research does not spring out of the lab and turn into a business overnight and here’s why…

Our neighbours across Asia-Pacific have collectively invested hundreds of millions of dollars into developing their innovation ecosystems over the last two decades. For example $755 million invested into Advance Queensland. Now founders and investors are enjoying multi-billion dollar exits and reinvesting those winnings into new ventures. New Zealand has abjectly failed to make that investment in the ecosystem.
Our universities and research institutes are well meaning but slow moving corporate elephants whose organisational design impedes innovation rather than accelerating it.
Our academics and researchers are mostly not natural entrepreneurs and they are not incentivised to pursue venture opportunities in an environment where publishing papers is the only perceived way to achieve success and recognition.
Research with commercial potential is not being connected to entrepreneurs and industry downtown who could make a difference.

Let’s find a better way by firstly investing a meaningful amount in developing our innovation ecosystem. Secondly all public funding for science and technology research should include a 10% component towards funding downstream commercialisation support. Finally, if academics and researchers see the value in their work but are unwilling to step up as founder entrepreneurs, then ensure that we match-make those projects with experienced local entrepreneurs and industry partners, so that value created remains onshore.