Feature
The Power List: Science and Technology
The best, brightest and boldest in science and technology.
No 1 Jim Watson, Science entrepreneur (New)
Granted, Watson’s career has not been free of disappointment: he was founder of Genesis Research and Development, which (like many other biotech start-ups) turned out to be a sharemarket fizzer. But Watson is also a man of dignity and commitment, qualities that have earned him widespread respect. This year, he cemented his status as an elder statesman of New Zealand science, chairing the National Science Panel that produced the Science Manifesto, a document that gave voice to years of frustration and anger in the science community. A former chairman of the Royal Society, he has long been an outspoken advocate for science. The manifesto bore his straight-talking style: in essence, it said that after years of inadequate funding, crushing bureaucracy and neglect, the science system was in urgent need of repair. The message has been heard: the manifesto’s key points have been adopted as Royal Society policy, and the science policies of Labour and National suggest both have taken note. The entrepreneurial Watson, 64, is also the driving force behind a venture developing bio-ethanol from willows grown on marginal land – green energy that doesn’t gobble up productive farmland.
No 2 Garth Carnaby, Science leader (New)
Carnaby is a science insider whose name will become more prominent when he takes over as president of the Royal Society next June. Associates say he has had an unsung influence on the science culture for years, pushing the need for both blue-skies research and applied science. He holds a clutch of important jobs in the science world: he is the Royal Society’s vice-president of commercial development; chairs the Marsden Fund, the hotly contested pot of money dedicated to fundamental research; is deputy chairman of Environmental Science and Research; chairman of New Zealand Synchrotron; and Lincoln University’s “entrepreneur in residence”. Like Jim Watson, Carnaby has spent years at the nexus between science and business, devoting much of his career to the development of high-value applications for wool.
No 3 Peter Gluckman, Liggins institute director (New)
Gluckman is a scientist of international repute, exemplified by his always seeming to be overseas these days. Much of his considerable energy has been devoted this year to the International Healthy Start to Life Project – billed as a “radical change in thinking” about how to deal with modern scourges such as obesity, mental illness and diabetes through well-targeted early intervention. He was instrumental in bringing together scientists, economists and public health experts to start devising a model for evaluating which social and nutritional programmes will have the greatest impact on health, productivity and quality of life. Gluckman wants policy-makers to take a long-term view “rather than applying isolated, short-term fixes driven by electoral cycles”. More power to him.
No 4 Stephen Goldson, AgResearch chief scientist (New)
Formerly AgResearch’s chief strategist, Canterbury-based Goldson elected to go back to the lab a year ago to refocus on research. But that hasn’t stopped him being a highly influential voice in the science policy scene, where he has garnered enormous respect among bureaucrats and politicians. With his untamed hair, the 58-year-old looks like the stereotypical mad scientist, but his reputation has been forged at the grass roots of the New Zealand economy: he has won acclaim for his pioneering work on controlling the clover root weevil and the Argentine stem weevil, critters that cost the New Zealand economy hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Brainy but self-deprecating, Goldson is a formidable advocate for science.
No 5 Jim Anderton, Progressive party leader (New)
Anderton is no boffin but earns a place on the list as the driving force behind Labour’s Fast Forward fund – $700 million in Government research money for the pastoral and food sectors, to be doled out over 10-15 years and matched by private-sector contributions. Panel member Jacqueline Rowarth describes the fund as “the best news for primary-resource-related research for several decades”. And although National says it will do away with it, it promises to replace it with something even better. Anderton, the panel concluded, has put agricultural science back at the top of the agenda.
