Posts by Bart Janssen
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Speaker: Doing the right thing on retirement, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Ahah! So Marsden is science that has a Point
No no it's pointless science ... especially topology
Science communication fail :(
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Speaker: Doing the right thing on retirement, in reply to merc,
"The planned advanced technology institute will operate in the border between business and science, providing a welcome focus on the development side of research and development," he said. "Exploiting untapped opportunities in the high tech manufacturing and services areas including ICT will be a major step forward for New Zealand's economy."
Because we just know that there are tons of great ideas in the lab that those scientists have just failed to exploit. All they need is the guidance of some businessmen.
But sarcasm aside, any investment will result in some good.
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Speaker: Doing the right thing on retirement, in reply to Kate Hannah,
Marsdenable, I’d call it
Exactly. Blue skies isn't quite right because it carries an implication that there is no conceivable value or product. What Marsdenable science has is quality first and foremost. Work that gets a Marsden is high quality, well thought out, likely to produce work that gets published in top peer reviewed journals. It also just so happens that it quite regularly results in patents and has proven to result in commercial spin outs.
This is nothing novel. Exactly the same thing has been seen with every fund that assesses quality first and foremost, everywhere in the world.
Note this isn't about me feathering my own nest. As our chief science advisor to the govt has pointed out again and again, countries that invest heavily in science (4 or more times the govt investment than NZ) have higher GDPs. Science and innovation drives wealth. And it isn't wealthy countries can afford science because countries that change from low investment to high investment see an increase in GDP a decade or so later and vice versa. If it isn't cause and effect then something very very bizarre is going on.
@ John - Is history a science? mmm I think we could drink several glasses of wine with that discussion. But I certainly was not intending that money go from the study of history into the study of the biochemistry of moth chemoreceptors.
To put this into a little more perspective for those outside the sciences (yes you can skip the rest of this post ... you read this far?!?). Marsdens are given to a very small number of proposals from a range of fields, including the social sciences, based solely on which proposal is the highest quality, as assessed by a scientific panel (of 8 or so?), with input from experts in the field for each proposal. Feedback from the panels is that they could fund 2-3 times as many grants and give them twice as much money each with no loss of quality.
By contrast MSI, the new ministry set up by our current government wants a description of the research in lay terms emphasizing how much the research will benefit the New Zealand economy in the next 3 years or so. The implication is that lay readers will be making the decisions. They will then pick which ones get money. This isn't too different from the FRST funding system that preceded MSI.
My reading of history suggests funding quality of science is the more successful strategy.
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Speaker: Doing the right thing on retirement, in reply to Carol Stewart,
Is that a euphemism?
No that's really what I am going to do ... right now ...
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Speaker: Doing the right thing on retirement, in reply to Sacha,
but NZ’s current indequate performance in those areas is wasting much of our good basic research.
That's a myth Sasha. Around the world most basic research that gets spun out to develop into a product fails. Of 100 ideas maybe 10 will survive 5 years and only 1 might produce a profit ever. Experience around the world has shown that picking the 1 from the 100 is nearly impossible, you just have to try them all.
The myth in NZ is that we have lots of good ideas we just need to develop them better. It just isn't true. We do have good ideas but nowhere near enough.
The other part of the myth is that somehow we in NZ can take 20 ideas and produce 10 productive businesses. We will do this by being smarter and better in our innovation. Of course that ignores the fact that everyone else in the world says the same thing. It's a kind of arrogance.
But you don't need to believe my words because that is exactly the funding and innovation model that we have been using in NZ for the last 20 years. Almost all our money going into developing the vast pool of great ideas we have hiding in the lab already. And we don't need to generate any new ideas.
It has failed. I'd strongly argue that continuing to do something that has failed for the last 20 years is stupid.
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Speaker: Doing the right thing on retirement, in reply to BenWilson,
I think Labour’s plank could very well be transformative.
One of the problems I've heard mentioned about that massive pool of money is that there aren't a huge number of places to invest the money in New Zealand and still get a decent return. The managers will be obliged to invest in other countries in order to get the returns expected.
There is a myth that we have lots of great innovative companies in NZ that would succeed if only they had investment money. Starvation of our R&D sector over the last 20 years has dried up most of the sources of such innovation. If you look around the world those small startups are usually clustered around good research communities, discoveries get spun out into small companies, most of which fail, but some succeed.
We do have innovative talented people in NZ but not as many as we need. While some of those kinds of people work their way up from the shop floor, in most places around the world those people come from universities and govt institutes.
Sorry drifting off topic and I better go pollenate my petunias.
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Speaker: Doing the right thing on retirement, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Why can’t we just use other people’s research?
You can. And we do. But if someone else did the primary research then they get the greatest benefit because any time you derive something of value from it you have to pay them a cut.
That's why making the primary discoveries is such a good thing because then you get paid for other folks development of your discovery. You also have the advantage that if you make the discovery the chances are that you will be able to apply it to problems of local interest better and sooner.
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Speaker: Doing the right thing on retirement, in reply to John Armstrong,
As someone working in a university history department, I’m not sure I like the sound of that.
Are you saying you don't think history is/can be scientific?
I'm not saying only wet bench science gets funding, I'd want any quality science to be funded. So long as it is high quality.
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Speaker: Doing the right thing on retirement, in reply to BenWilson,
I don’t believe the economy can’t be transformed.
I also believe the economy can be transformed.
But I do not believe that any such transformation will come from current economic theory, practiced by both National and Labour. So given the current economic structure I believe we should plan on not being able to retire 'till 67 or 70.
As an aside my personal opinion is that the only way such a transformation can occur is if we (and the govt that represents us) invest dramatically more in scientific research. NOT innovation, NOT tech transfer, NOT business tax rebates. Just pure and simple put money into the highest quality science we can. That is the only thing historically that has led to the kind of transformation that could allow us to retire at 50. And no I have no idea which bit of research will do the trick but I do know that if you don't do the research you'll end up paying the person who did.
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The aim must be to allow those who want to work the opportunity to do so and provide those who don't want to work the necessities of life and the luxuries. At any age.
We can't do that. So we require people to work who don't want to.
The decision is simply about what age can we afford to allow people to stop working. We thought it was 65, now we've done the maths properly it turns out it can't be 65, so we'll try 67. That may not work either and it may have to be 70. Or we may somehow transform our economy such that we can afford it to be 60 or 50.
Absent of such a transformation of our economy I am fairly well convinced by the math that the retirement age has to rise.