Posts by Bart Janssen
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Ok because I’m a geek and somewhat contrary I did some reading about the costs of driving your old car vs buying a new(er) more fuel efficient car. And not surprisingly it is complicated. If you want to read more I found this article very helpful. It’s based on data from the Netherlands, but it asks a lot of interesting questions.
The short summary is there is a point at which you are better to continue driving your old car than replacing it with a new(er) more fuel efficient car.
The article talks about things like - new cars are only up to a couple of percent more efficient in fuel use and new cars tend to get driven more (you are more likely to do a big road trip in a new car) and most importantly it costs a LOT of energy to build a new car and scrap and old car (even if you recycle).
The exact age where it becomes worth trading up is dependent on a lot of factors but it looks like from my reading that a 15 year old car is still close enough in fuel efficiency to a new car that the cost of scraping it and building a new car is not worth it.
So despite Damian’s best efforts he may well be helping the environment by driving his old Holden :P.
Of course if the new(er) car is a lot more efficient then that age of replacement gets shorter and it also depends on things like how much of the old car is recycled and also on just how much driving is done. Also if you make your old car more efficient that will always be better. The real point is it’s more complicated than new(er) more efficeient = better for the environment. -
John Key spoke
You can trust us to honour them because we might get booted out if we don't.
So we should pay National a nice fat salary for 3 years, and let them manage our economy, on trust???????
snort politician snort trust...damn now I have to clean coffee off my monitor again
cheers
Bart -
OR
We just don't play Rugby in New Zealand as well as they do elsewhere.
Just an idea.
Just the concept that perhaps just perhaps we are not as skilled at this game as we believe.
Just suggesting that anyone else after losing every world cup (bar the first one where not every one was really trying) might actually conclude that they don't play the game very well.
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put $XXX million dollars into our first budget and it will be there every year from then on, adjusted for inflation, so we can guarantee the research future of NZ'.
I doubt anyone realizes this but only one funding agency in NZ adjusts grants for inflation and that's the Marsden fund.
That means if you get long term funding 6-8 years there is NO money for pay rises for staff, increased costs in materials, increased overheads etc. Do you think that means that the funding agency staff don't believe in pay rises for themselves either?
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I have to say the minister's response was pretty good. Thanks
It’s better anyway for experts than for politicians to
make decisions about research areas.I agree wholeheartedly.
Can we get a definition of "expert" please? If you mean experts like the royal society of NZ who have done such a wonderful job with the Marsden fund then great.
Can I also suggest that whatever organization does the decision making, they use peer review as the primary method to determine the best proposals for funding.
cheers
Bart -
jg
i'm all for basic research but tripling the amount of papers and patents churned out will not spontaneously lead to any kind of payback no matter how much scientists implore you to just, just... believe.
I'm to simply disagree with you, but I do.
The history of science and technology is really really clear on this. Basic science makes the big differences. Applied science is necessary but doesn't make the big differences.
Tripling the number of papers and patents actually does triple (or more) the economic payoff. This is not an argument, the data is out there, go look at US research from 1950 to 1990 and compare economic benefit from NSF funded (basic) versus USDA (applied) funded science. Yes USDA science is tremendously valuable but the step changes the transformational changes come from basic science and the more basic science you do the more likely you are to get payoff.
You cannot and shouldn't solely fund basic science but you also must not pretend for a second that you can "pick winner" because of some clever economic goal. It just doesn't work that way.
'fund excellence wherever it is' but the blunt fact of the matter (mentioned by someone already) is that clustering is a good thing
Yes it was I who said both things. But I'll reiterate, in my opinion it is better to fund higher quality than to "target". And again go look at research outputs from the US over the last 50-60 years.
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Hi Kyle
That's not a question that's already answered in my Yates NZ Gardens book?
Lovely book isn't it. It answers the question of "how to grow plants?". How plants grow is a much more interesting question :). What happens inside the plant when you shade it with another plant? Exactly what changes occur when your parsley stops producing yummy leaves and instead produces useless seeds?
Find the answers to those questions and maybe you can do something exciting and valuable that the Yates book never covered:).
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Hi Craig
But I suspect the phrase "expectation" that private parties would stump up with matching funding was chosen with some care. Serious question, because I've not found any answer -- exactly what does that mean?
Research funding in NZ is really unbalanced. In most countries industry funds a decent chunk, in NZ that portion is way below average and the govt (ie the taxpayers) pay for most of it. The govt has been trying really hard to get industry to stump their share, hence the recent tax break.
This is another part of the equation. My guess is projects will only be funded if they have an industry partner. And my guess is industries wanting their field to get funding will be expected to have contributed to the fund. Ok if you are Fonterra not so easy if you are the avocado growers association.
But your question is valid we won't know what it means until we see the devilish details.
cheers
Bart -
I thought I’d have a guess at answers to some of your specific questions
Sorry for the wall of text
What are the most promising areas of research?
Any research if done really well has the prospect of producing economic and social benefit. The problem with this question is it seems such an obvious question and it seems like it’s easy to answer. But the reality is the history of science has shown that it is almost impossible to predict which area of research will produce the greatest benefit.
BUT
Two things are clear
One, ,if you fund really high quality of science you are more likely to get benefit, and the best method to determine quality is peer review.
And two, if you get a reasonable number of researchers together working in roughly the same field they will make faster progress than one researcher on his/her own.
In NZ we already have a reasonable number of pretty decent plant and animal scientists so a good option to get best results is to expand on those existing general fields.
My guess, and I’m a plant developmental biologist, is that if we can figure out how plants grow that will open up areas of tremendous value to NZ and humankind as a whole.What products are pending?
Don’t really know for sure because I don’t know everything that is being done in science in NZ, there are some new plant varieties and some new animal breeds. There is some research beginning on trying to identify compounds in our crops that “improve health”.
Which private-sector companies are most likely to pony up matching funds?
Zespri (kiwifruit), Prevar (apples and pears), Fonterra (dairy) don’t know the meat companies but they might pony up some dosh, a wool company, winegrowers association … after that you are starting to get into pretty small grower groups, the kind that can really only afford $20-30k for a specific project. It’s an issue for NZ we just don’t have big companies that have the money to invest.
Who will own the intellectual property in the killer products we want to create?
Hmm well the cynic in me says anyone other than the scientist who invents it. But seriously IP is pointless unless you have a commercial outlet. No point in paying lawyers $50-100k to patent something you can’t sell. So what happens is the inventors (or the research institute that employs them) start the process off and then looks for a partner to pay the bill for the patent and pay for marketing the product and as that deal is struck the royalties get divided up.
To be honest where the IP is held is not the question, rather the question is “how much money makes it back to NZ?”
Some fields have more issues with this than others. For example a new drug discovered in NZ might make it to pre-clinical trial stage in NZ but we simply do not have enough people in NZ and enough money to get a drug further than stage one clinical trials. So you need a big business partner to pay the US$500 million needed to get the drug to release point – guess how much money gets back to NZ in that deal.
By contrast a new apple variety can be developed entirely in NZ and then licensed for growth anywhere in the world with revenue making it back to NZ fairly directly.
You could argue that we should only work on new plants but new drugs make more money so a small slice of a new drug might be worth more than a large slice of a new apple.
Why has forestry been specifically left out?
Not sure. Trees are plants too and the same basic research that improves apples can improve trees. But some of the forestry goals are different. Also the forestry industry is a bit different too. Maybe there will be a special forestry fund too – yeah right.
Aren't biomaterials very important too?
Don’t know.
Do we need another one of these funds?
How about another 5 or 6. Seriously, I personally believe there is no better way to improve the NZ economy than research. We are too damn small to compete on any commodity in any field. Our only chance is to be better smarter more innovative. The only way to do that is with a robust research community, filled with the best and brightest minds all keen to work hard.
That we don’t have that now would be somewhat of an understatement. There are some who think that NZ science is nearly dead, strangled by bad funding, overwhelming bureaucracy and mismanagement. Not me of course I’m an optimist – really I am.
What about basic research?
/rant mode on
Basic research is critical. Every damn piece of progress we’ve made in the last 10000 years has stemmed from basic research. Especially the progress over the last 200 years. In the last 50 years you can look specifically at the performance of US basic (NSF) and applied research (eg USDA, and yes I know some very good USDA researchers) and in nearly every case it’s the basic research that makes the big changes economically and socially.BUT
It takes years, more than 3 years. And since our politicians don’t give a rats arse about anything longer than 3 years they don’t care. And since the managers who run our funding organisations and research institutes generally think that 5 years in one company is a long time, they don’t care.
Yes you have to put money into applied research but you must must must fund basic research or you will end up paying some other country to use their cool discoveries instead of having them pay us.
/Rant mode offSorry just a bit angry about the way basic science in NZ has been gutted over the last 15 years
And why does the fund have such a terrible name?
Have a look at the FRST and MRST web sites and see the bad acronyms. Apparently research in NZ can’t be funded without a bad name.
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dc_red wrote
Re: Fonterra. Given the success you speak of RB, do you have any sense of whether it really requires this, um, subsidy?
Please don't think of this as a subsidy for Fonterra. As much as I have reservations about this fund, the money will actually go to researchers working in labs and not to Fonterra.
It's worth noting that researchers like me have been working on FRST grant money that has not been adjusted for inflation for 7 years and won't be adjusted for the next 4-6 year either. The institutes we work for have had to struggle to maintain any salary increases at all and we have all had to cut costs to try and maintain some output of science in a flat funding environment.
I'm sure some accountant in wtgn thinks they've done a wonderful job of forcing "efficiencies" in science. [I'd love to be in a small room with that accountant for a while so I could explain the damage they've done :)]
Without new money from somewhere science in NZ is looking at very hard times. This money, while you could argue it should have come from Fonterra without any government help, is desperately needed.
cheers
Bart