New Zealand-based research consortium The Kiwi Innovation Network (KiwiNet) is to receive NZ$7.5m ($6m) over the next three years in order to turn the country’s research potential into commercial reality.
The investment comes from New Zealand’s Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, which is making the cash available through its Pre-Seed Accelerator Fund. Around NZ$15m has been allocated to five organisations in total.
The KiwiNet consortium is comprised from 12 partner universities (including Lincoln and Canterbury universities), research institutes and government research organisations and represents 60% of the country’s scientists. Since its inception five years ago, KiwiNet has allocated NZ$6.7m to over 50 projects from a range of sectors, including robotics, hybrid vehicles and food storage.
Bram Smith, general manager at KiwiNet, said: “The government’s Pre-Seed funding is an essential tool for public research organisations as they work to create more commercial benefits for New Zealand. Such funding represents a small fraction of the overall science investment, but without it many good ideas would fail to see the light of day. We’re a small country. By sharing resources, contacts, routes to market and commercialisation successes and lessons learnt we leverage off each other and achieve significant synergies beyond trying to do everything alone. The willingness of KiwiNet’s member organisations to pool PSAF funding and allocate it on the merit of individual projects shows a genuine desire to maximise the commercial outcomes for New Zealand.”
