Wayne Mapp released the Government’s response to the CRI Taskforce report yesterday, and it might have some big implications for universities down the track.

The policy changes all seem pretty sensible, as the consensus is that the science reforms of the early 1990s went too far by making CRI funding too contestable, diverting focus from long-term capability to short-term chasing of funding. The other changes should make CRIs more focused on end-users, rather than officials, and could lead to a surge in innovation in NZ (I just made up that last part).

But if I was a university Vice-Chancellor, I might be a bit worried. CRIs are going to get more core funding, so will be able to boost their core capability. They will have a shiny new Statement of Core Purpose that will probably attract more funding, and they are going to be encouraged to be closer to end-users. Unlike universities, they will also be much more under the control of Ministers, so may be seen as a safer bet for future investment. All of these things are going to help CRIs in getting businesses’ and officials’ support in bidding for new funding. There won’t be a wholesale shift of funding, but CRIs are likely to improve their share of new funding over the next few years.

The area of potential for universities is that CRIs are expected to collaborate more with other research institutions. The NZVCC specifically referred to a requirement  in the Taskforce report for CRIs to collaborate with others in a media release in early March, but I don’t think the change will come to much. Universities and CRIs already collaborate a lot anyway, and I’d expect CRIsto roll current collaboration into the mix and avoid doing too much more. Collaboration was really quite a small part of the Taskforce’s work and is unlikely to be a big priority for Ministers.

One thing that the media haven’t picked up yet, to my knowledge, is that almost all of the decisions were probably made before the Taskforce’s report was released on 4 March. You see, Wayne Mapp released a Cabinet paper yesterday that advised that the Taskforce’s report be accepted other than a couple of minor matters. Most of the text is exactly the same as the Minister’s media release. And that Cabinet paper was clearly written in February or very early March because it referred to plans for releasing the Taskforce report. The only major thing left to be done in that February Cabinet paper was the MORST/FRST merger, announced last week.