Letter to Minister Reti on proposed restructure of CRIs

^{New Zealand flax. Bernard Spragg, Flickr.}

The Commissioner has written to the recently appointed Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology to express his concerns about the proposed restructure of Crown Research Institutes. These include:

• moving Maanaki Whenua – Landcare Research (MWLR) into the proposed a bioeconomy public research organisation (PRO), instead of an earth sciences PRO
• the future of nationally significant databases and other critical research collections held by MWLR as a result of the restructure
• ongoing concerns relating to a lack of meaningful funding increases to cover the management and extension of these databases

He also argues that the Crown needs to retain a dedicated funding agency for research and a way to ensure that its strategic priorities for environmental research are clearly communicated to the funder. This is to ensure that government research investments map to the most important environmental challenges we face.