Affiliations
Director, The Elshire Group Ltd,
President (2017-2022, 2023-), Genomics for Aotearoa New Zealand
Councilor (2021), New Zealand Association of Scientists
Member, Maize Genetics Cooperation
Member, New Zealand Open Source Society
Associate Member, Aotearoa Tech Union
Associate Member, Lawyers for Climate Action New Zealand, Inc.
Genomics Technology Innovator
I was the lead developer for the genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) technology at Cornell University. It was better, faster, and cheaper than other DNA analysis methods. We made it free to use (no license fees) and trained many researchers. Here in Aotearoa, GBS is being used by many of our Universities and Crown Research Institutes. From kiwi fruit (breeding PSA tolerant gold varieties at Plant and Food Research) to kiwi conservation (the Kiwi Whakapapa project at Massey University) - all through our primary industries and our natural world.
Public Scientist
Over the years, I got to know all kinds of people through working many different jobs: construction labourer, petrol station attendant, pizza delivery driver, hardware store clerk, computer operator, etc. These experiences helped me understand the importance of each person, no matter who they are, where they come from, or what circumstances they find themselves in. My efforts are for the people. I am fortunate to have broad and varied education, training, and experience. From a start in electrical engineering, to biology and horticulture. Then on to genomics science, DNA sequencing, through to training in ethics, professionalism, entrepreneurship and intellectual property. I have set up molecular marker labs, managed a number of business for others, and am currently a director of a genomics research company with clients all around the world. I have a strong interest in seeing public investments in research benefiting the public. I believe that all of the people in our research system (regardless of position or title) deserve to be treated fairly and with kindness as well as have career pathways that will assist them to flourish in their work and personal lives.
Disclaimer: Any posts made by me reflect my personal views and not necessarily the views of those organisations with which I may be affiliated.
Researchers face an increasingly hostile environment, with intimidation and harassment originating from a variety of external actors. Learn more about the problem and the actions needed by different stakeholders here.
The Researcher Support Consortium has a suite of tools aimed at funders, research institutions, and researchers. These issues are ever increasing, making it even more important to have ways and means to effectively mitigate them.
researchersupport.org 
The latest issue of the New Zealand Science Review was published last month. This is the Special Issue On the University Crisis. It is an excellent collection writing on many aspects of the current crisis. Recommended reading for anyone with interest in the future of tertiary education and research in Aotearoa.
Kia ora koutou,
Welcome to Te Ara Paerangi Community!
Yesterday, Minister Collins dropped a bombshell on our already besieged public research sector. Abrupt changes to the Marsden and Catalyst Funds came as a surprise to all across the research sector. There is plenty being written about why this is bad, who it may affect and how, what it all means, etc. I won't rehash that here. This post is about coming together to work out a path to a public research sector that works for everyone.
You are reading this because it is important to you that someone does something about what is happening in research and all across the public sector. We are all in the same boat. This is us and it is us who must do something. This site was created three years ago to encourage participation and sharing of expertise in the Te Ara Paerangi / Future Pathways research system reform process. We had some success with that - collaborating, teaching and learning, and having a place to do it. That process was scuttled when this government came in. That was disheartening for so many who had put their time and energy, heart and tears into it.
As with so many other public services, cut after cut has been made in the research sector. Some overt, others quietly just letting things end (e.g. national science challenges). The announcements yesterday are a policy change in kind, not in degree. We are all right in being very, very concerned; angry even. The many years of neoliberalism, managerialism, and hyper-competition in our under resourced system have conditioned many away from working together for the good of everyone. We must overcome that, now. This includes organisations as well as individuals.
To join the Te Ara Paerangi Community site: request an invitation here.
What we are offering here is a place to organise, to collaborate, to build community, to plan, to work to effect change. Some things in the near term. Others with a longer time frame.
Your help is needed to make these things happen. In the now, there two areas where expertise and effort are needed:
- Organisation Building / Governance
- People interested informing the process needed to form a diverse and appropriately skilled steering group.
- People who have time and interest in being a chair / member of the steering group.
- Aiming for an online hui in mid-January. Sooner is possible if someone can take on the organising.
- Technical & Testing Group
- People who have experience administering content management systems.
- People with skills in user interface design.
- People who like to write how to documents.
- People who know none of the above and can tell us what is not working for them or is confusing.
When you look at the lists above and you see your skills in one of the items, put something in the comments. It is so important that we see each other putting our hands up to do the mahi.
Just a few weeks ago, I shifted the site to a server in Aotearoa. I did not anticipate yesterday's news, so it is not quite where I want it to be. There is a bit more technical work to be done so that the direct messaging can be enabled again. At the same time, in site video conferencing will be added. Once there is a steering group, we will re-evaluate how the site is set up based on the needs of the community.
Thanks for sticking with me through this long post. Together, we can build a better future in Aotearoa. Tell your colleagues, your whanau, and your mates about this effort.
Ngā mihi nui,
Rob
www.rnz.co.nz 
We are moving! If the site is down intermittently over the next several days this is why.
The server on which we have hosted Te Ara Paerangi Community has reached the end of the paid cycle. So has the domain name registration. We have migrated to a new domain name registrar. It will take some time for the DNS service to get sorted. We will be moving the site itself shortly as well.
The main benefits of moving are that it will be in Aotearoa, we will have control and flexibility on how we run the server, and we can add more features. There is nothing you need to do except have a bit of patience as we do the work behind the scenes.
Ngā mihi!
This is a sad, sad development indeed. NZRise has been a strong and, in so many ways, very effective voice for local IT companies. They championed local talent and growth in our IT sector, fighting government procurement systems that structurally excluded them in favor of overseas giants.
If you are in a position to hire local companies to do your IT work, I strongly encourage you to do that. Those businesses put the money you spend right back into our economy. The alternatives siphon money out of our economy sending it overseas. Local companies also pay their fair share of taxes, supporting civil society in that way. Many of the multinationals have tax avoidance strategies that results in them paying next to nothing in taxes here.
As a small business owner, we go local first - in IT and anything else possible. You can do that too.
Why is NZRise winding up now?
Despite these achievements, keeping momentum has grown increasingly difficult. Like many volunteer-led organizations, we’ve faced declining engagement—a challenge impacting not just NZRise but many other not-for-profits. The current government has shown little interest in addressing issues critical to NZ-owned digital businesses, while multinationals gain increasingly easier access to agencies and politicians alike. This stark contrast is hard to reconcile: digital technology is touted as a key export sector, yet our government continues to prioritise large offshore companies over buying from or listening to local businesses. Finally, recent changes to the Incorporated Societies Act add compliance requirements that, without dedicated resources, are difficult to meet.
itp.nz 
Ever find yourself making a poster or presentation wishing you had some high quality, scientifically accurate illustrations to use? The NIH has made a repository of those kinds of things. They put all of the into the public domain. Anyone can use them for any purpose. They are at the NIH BioArt Source web site.
In 1985, David Penny wrote a 4 part series of articles in the National Business Review. He was not one to put forth an argument without data to support it, nor one to mince words. When reading these pieces, I recognised many of the same problems that I have seen in my time in Aotearoa New Zealand. This includes the one he points out in the cover image above, somehow it is expected that our research system should only do applied research. We have heard that again, and again this year.
My take home message is in his question "Where do we turn for effective leadership?" This is, again in our time, the central question around which all the other pieces depend. It is a question, that I think we need to build a community of research, advocacy, and capability to answer. Let's do that.
Some quotes from the articles written almost 40 years ago:
- New Zealand has tried the option of low research effort and hoping things will be all right. That policy has failed. But it is going to be extremely difficult to get effective action. Business leaders know little science, universities are impoverished, and Government scientists lack incentives. Where do we turn for effective leadership?
- What we need from the Government are not hand-outs, but leadership. The policy followed for the last 40 years had led to continued devaluations as we followed a cheap labour, low skills, strategy. We do not have the option of a rare commodity (for example,oil) leading to a high standards of living despite low R&D. Selecting a strategy of high added value depends upon skilled inputs.
- Finally, the tax laws need to be changed so that capital gains are taxed normally. In the present system it is too easy for companies to play the capital gains, takeover game. It is going to be hard work to go for the high skills strategy, but in the medium and long term it is essential for international competitiveness.
- There is an urgent need for a network of scientific databases and programs. These have been well established for five years in North America. New Zealand is an ideal size for such a network but there are major administrative difficulties here as each Government department and university thinks mainly of its own needs.
- We spend little on research and our living standards are still falling relative to other OECD countries. For 40 years we have lived in the smug belief that things would get better.
- ... sometimes we need to supply local figures to help obtain a world pattern. One obvious example is weather and climatic research. We expect a marked improvement in the world models and prediction in this area of research (even if it will not improve the weather itself!).
Zip archive of David Penny's 1985 articles on the New Zealand universities and research system.
Resetting the public’s understanding of how science works will be a big job, but a good place to start is with students who get science degrees. Unfortunately, most programs are full of didactic classes about scientific principles, with few if any requirements on the history and philosophy of science. Because many undergraduate science majors pursue careers outside of science, including medicine, a shift in curricula would ultimately produce a public that is more literate in the way that science works. This means making hard decisions about how to fit a broader, deeper perspective into curricula that are already jammed tight with the necessary basics. However, it’s urgent for scientists to make compromises in the way they teach for the greater good.
There is so much benefit one can gain from having a solid grounding in the philosophy of science. If you are a student pursuing science, see if you can find a course at your university. You won't regret it!
“They talk about efficiencies but we’re not going to be efficient if you keep knocking people back every year because people are just going to be doing less and less.”
This arvo, I caught up with the always thoughtful @Ritodhi Chakraborty. Having followed the issues in higher education in Aotearoa, Australia, Canada, the US and the UK, i have been keen to know if similar things are happening in other places. I asked Ritodhi about this, expecting he would have some insight. He did. Below is an article that describes what is happening in India. Ritodhi walked me through the flow on effects of these developments in regards to student expectations when looking for post-graduate training outside of India.
From the article:
For higher education, though, the pathway is being made clearer by the day through a series of new rules and directions from the University Grants Commission (UGC). In contrast to the current ‘mode-for-learning’ approach — which privileges critical thinking and citizenship training — the NEP intends to make dominant a ‘mode-for-instruction’ framework centred around information, exams, vocational training, and skilling.
Having some idea of what is happening in India is likely to help inform how we think about our own tertiary education system and its future. If you are not already familiar with it, I suspect you will be surprised, maybe even shocked by the article below.
www.theindiaforum.in DEADLINE 13TH OCTOBER 2024
They are looking for input in choosing between 3 topics for which one to prioritise. Given the importance of the public service, this is a critical opportunity to help shape the future. Details below.
www.publicservice.govt.nz The Times Higher Ed recently published an article about this suit. It has the following, spot on, quote:
“The for-profit academic publishing industry is in the business of exploiting the goodwill and hard work of brilliant scholars, and of taxpayers who foot the bill to create their product,” Dean Harvey, a partner at Lieff Cabraser, said in a news release.
The full complaint in the lawsuit is at the link below. IMHO, it is time that the academic publishing industry is challenged on their exploitative business model.
