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By RNZ

The board behind the new Bioeconomy Science Institute, which merges public research organisations, has picked its new headquarters.

AgResearch’s Tuhiraki building at the Lincoln University Campus in Canterbury will become the head office of the new institute, the board has decided.

It comes as the science sector overhaul, considered one of the most significant reforms to the sector in decades, came into effect officially on Tuesday.

The Bioeconomy Science Institute merges AgResearch, Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research, Scion, and Plant and Food Research.

The institute’s new chief executive, Mark Piper, said it shared the board of directors’ decision with staff on Tuesday, after several weeks of deliberation.

He said the decision was more of a legal formality, as it had many sites and facilities scattered across New Zealand, and all were important.

“We will have a head office because we need to have one, but we will have distributed leadership,” Piper said.

“And so, when we looked through it, Lincoln is our largest site in the Bioeconomy Science Institute.

“It’s co-located with an excellent university and our biggest collection of scientists.

“So it makes a lot of sense that would be our representative head office.”

Further assessment of bringing together sites and facilities, such as the laboratories of the former Crown Research Institutes, was expected.

Piper said 70% of the Institute’s 2300 people were scientists, and 560 people were already at Lincoln.

He said Scion would be leaving its Christchurch office for Lincoln.

“Within walking distance, AgResearch, Manaaki Whenua and Plant and Food all have facilities [there] today, and Scion is just down the road in Christchurch, and moving into Tuhiraki building down in Lincoln in the near term.

“All four of the institutes that have come together today in the bioeconomy, we have some representation down there.”

Piper, the outgoing Plant and Food chief executive, said Auckland or Wellington may host high-profile visitors, while forestry work would likely remain in its Bay of Plenty hub.

Speaking to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation select committee on Monday, before the announcement, outgoing AgResearch chief executive Sue Bidrose said there had been a lot of discussion about the new head office location.

"These changes are about sharpening our focus and lifting performance," Minister Shane Reti says. Photo / Mike Scott

“Lincoln is our largest campus with the beautiful new Tukaki building on site there, which is a location co-located with Lincoln University,” Bidrose said, during the review briefing on its 2023/24 annual review.

“The work being done to suggest that the head office, or a proportion of the agency, should be in the South Island was certainly heard by the people who were involved in making that decision, so it certainly got a good hearing.”

But Bidrose said the organisation’s previous work to understand the location choices for research found that “scientists aren’t widgets” and any attempts to move the workforce had to be carefully considered.

“They’re people and they have children in the local schools and they have partners who work in the local businesses as well, and so on and so forth.”

Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research’s outgoing chief executive, James Stevenson-Wallace, also told the select committee that Lincoln was its innovation hub.

“For Landcare, our strategic base is and always will be in Lincoln, so there’s a critical mass,” Wallace said.

“There are particular anchor scientists who are highly competitive.

“And likewise, there’s very clear rationale for what we have anchored and Auckland, particularly around our biological collections, and there in Palmerston North, where we have distinct capabilities around our geospatial.”

With 600 projects still currently running, Stevenson-Wallace said the key was about having researchers and scientists in the right places, and it would bring its many specialist facilities to the new entity.

“There is no active downsizing of our offices,” he said.

“That hasn’t been a campaign.

“The highly specialised nature of those labs drives the workforce that’s actually attached to it.

“So there’s an infrastructure and human capability component.”

Barry Harris, former chairman of Niwa (now Earth Sciences New Zealand) with extensive governance experience, chaired the new Bioeconomy Science Institute board, alongside directors Kim Wallace and Andrew Morrison of AgResearch, Candace Kinser of Plant and Food, and Gray Baldwin of Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research.

Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Dr Shane Reti said on Tuesday that the new organisations were designed to unlock innovation, drive economic growth, and improve the lives of hardworking New Zealanders.

“These changes are about sharpening our focus and lifting performance,” Reti said.

“By bringing together complementary research skills and infrastructure, we’re enabling greater collaboration, better alignment with Government priorities, and stronger commercial outcomes.

“These new organisations will be set up to deliver real-world value, creating jobs, boosting exports, and helping New Zealand compete globally.”

Tuhiraki was built on independently-owned land on the campus and was opened in September 2023.

-RNZ