WHEN POWERFUL AGENCIES HIJACK DEMOCRATIC SYSTEMS PART II: The case of science system reform (2025)

Recommended citation: PSGR (2025) When powerful agencies hijack democratic systems. Part II: The case of science system reform. Bruning, J.R.. Physicians & Scientists for Global Responsibility New Zealand. April 2025. ISBN 978-1-0670678-1-6

SUMMARY

This 2-part 2025 review by the Physicians and Scientists for Global Responsibility New Zealand Charitable Trust (PSGR), documents policy process and official conduct regarding gene technology reform (part I)[1] and science system reform (part II). The papers consider information provided in official documents that suggest that officials may be setting aside or undermining important issues and conventions that are essential to sustaining a robust, healthy, accountable democratic nation-state. These reforms were undertaken by Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) officials, working in tandem with the Minister in charge, the Hon Judith Collins, King’s Counsel and Attorney-General, from November 2023 to February 2025.

PSGR calls for two separate public enquiries to evaluate the actions of that Minister and officials in driving outcomes which appear to severely restrict the capacity of the new gene technology regulator, and the New Zealand science system, to conduct activities that would serve the public purpose and support constitutional and democratic government.

The papers arrive at two recommendations:

Part I: Gene Technology Reform Recommendation: That the Gene Technology Bill be placed on hold. That the Ombudsman convene an Inquiry into the conduct of the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment (MBIE) and the Hon. Judith Collins, Kings Counsel and Attorney-General, in regard to their work on gene technology regulatory reform over the period 2023-2025. That the Ombudsman considers evidence that this body of persons acted improperly in their duties, directly undermining public law conventions, in order to expedite policies and laws in favour of the deregulation of gene editing technology. That the terms of reference pay particular attention to the benefits of observing the principle of open justice, and require that the inquiry follows independent, impartial and fair processes.[1]

Part II: Science System Reform Recommendations: That a transparent and public inquiry is undertaken to evaluate the past, present and future role of New Zealand's RSI&T system. This inquiry must be independent, impartial and fair. It may be in the form of a public inquiry or a Royal Commission (Inquiries Act 2013, s.6). The terms of reference/ list of recommendations can be found on pages 53-56.

This inquiry is necessary because there is evidence that the current science system is inadequately resourced to meet the objectives of society at large; and that the science system reforms that are currently underway (2023-2024) have excluded any evaluation or discussion on this issue. These current reforms will further direct the RSI&T system away from optimising science and research designed to identify and address domestic problems and challenges. PSGR recommend that the RSI&T system Inquiry problem definition address:

‘the capacity of the publicly funded RSI&T system to demonstrably contribute to public-good knowledge, and in doing so serve the public purpose and support the wellbeing of New Zealand, her people, resources and environment’.

This Part II paper, The Case of Science System Reform, draws attention to policy documents and decision-making processes in the 2023-2024 science system reform. The aims and outcomes of the current science system reform further tighten policy, and therefore science funding, to innovation-specific outcomes, leaving the RSI&T system inadequately resourced to meet the objectives of society at large. The public-good role remains inferred, but essentially drafted out of policy.

The paper highlights the historic context and that the current shifts follow three decades of systematically reducing the capacity of New Zealand’s publicly funded RSI&T system to produce knowledge which might update information, inform policy and underpin the stewardship of resources

This paper considers the conflicts of interest when the agency for economic growth reforms policy and law to further demand and incentivise commercialisation of the science and technology it funds, for economic growth purposes. It reveals how policy problematisation centred around reform to incentivise innovation (a proxy for patent production) and commercialisation across the science and research system for economic growth purposes. In the process the role of public good research in fulfilling the objectives of society at large remains unaddressed, and, arguably, undermined.

MBIE and Judith Collins appear to believe that the science reforms will drive economic growth and that by more tightly binding funding for science, research and technology to commercial outcomes, national benefits and public good outcomes will arise or ‘trickle down’.

When economic growth drives policy, the capacity of science and research systems to both inform and steward New Zealand is diverted away from public interest research. Innovation systems focus on commercial outcomes and intellectual property rights (IP). ‘Innovation’ requirements in science policy ensures that funding committees must favour research, science and technology proposals that reflect economic and commercial prospects. In competitive funding environments, the funding committee will downgrade science proposals that cannot promise an innovation and commercialisation pathway. Scientists structure funding proposals accordingly.

Innovation and commercialisation policies and incentives in highly competitive funding environments, drastically curtail the capacity of researchers and scientists to undertaken long-term work to evaluate system-level vulnerabilities and failings across human health, infrastructure and resources.

No study of the past 20 years of innovation-related policies, and the financial return on investment, was cited. There is no evidence from domestic sources, that the innovation-based research priorities have promoted economic growth. The new science reforms aim to advance innovation-related foreign investment, directing the RSI&T system to focus on the goals of foreign investors.

Government papers reveal an unwillingness to acknowledge that researchers and scientists in the prevailing research, science and technology system have struggled to deal with current science policies and innovation incentives. They have found that these policies have promoted cultures of secrecy, and undermined collaboration and the development of skills. As this paper discusses, the recent science system reforms ignored a 2022 consultation that outlined many of the problems science system insiders have faced over the past 20 years.

Four case studies reveal the contradictions and problems that arise when innovation is the priority. The first case study shows that when innovation-related emerging technologies have been funded, MBIE does not require a return on income analysis to justify the economic growth benefit of research outcomes.

Two case studies explore the importance of an RSI&T system in being able to critically analyse the risks of technologies. Technologies frequently come with their own set of risks. When there is an absence of long-term funding for technologies, policymakers and society can fail to understand risk, with the consequence that problems and harms from those technologies can be ignored and sidelined. A final case study shows how long-term research to shed light on, and update basic information about biology and health falls outside of funding scopes, and how this can lead to missed technological opportunities.

Complex and multidisciplinary research that can monitor and evaluate explore technologies and technological outcomes, monitor human and environmental biology, or challenging existing scientific understandings, and that may contradict the status quo, is political. However, it is just as political to exclude and underfund research pathways that enable scientists to question the status quo and query taken for granted maxims.

Research, science innovation and technology (RSI&T) systems struggle when policy and funding is controlled by narrow groups of experts. The paper reveals how a select group of scientists whose expertise predominantly revolved around innovation technologies, were quickly brought in to make recommendations for science system reform that would prioritise enhancing innovation. Most are closely tied to industries that develop and commercialise technologies.

Part I, The Case of Gene Technology Reform, explored gene technology reform and the conflicts of interest when the government agency that controls all science funding, that is responsible for economic growth, then becomes the agency with the power to deregulate the biotechnologies it is funding (through that science system) for the purpose of economic growth. Part I shows how the problem definition centred around deregulating gene technology for economic growth purposes, rather than safely stewarding these technologies. MBIE, which controls science funding, would now control the capacity of the regulator to identify risks.

If the Gene Technology Bill was passed into law, MBIE would administer the Act and control the production of all secondary legislation. This is where the rules and guidelines would be formalised.

Part II reveals that national benefit and public-good is implied yet the current policy will render it almost impossible to identify threats, challenges and opportunities. This is because curiousity-driven, or basic research will be out of scope for research that explores, for example, productivity from better management of agricultural systems, pollution, environmental drivers of chronic and infectious disease. It’s unlikely that this research would get the long-term multimillion dollar budgets, because there is no identified innovation or patent that can be pre-identified at the start of the research.

These two papers When powerful agencies hijack democratic systems reveal how MBIE controls the roll of the dice, firstly by directing funding to prioritise research to commercialise technologies that can present risks to human and environmental health, secondly, by designing funding policies that inhibit research that would explore the risks of the technology that MBIE funds, and thirdly, by controlling the design of the regulation that would lower barriers to the very technologies that it has allocated funding to develop, which increase likelihood of commercial release, we might say that the game is rigged.

PSGR ask the reader to consider whether the science system reforms may make it even more difficult for scientists and researchers to access meaningful funding for national benefit and public good research, than in the existing system it is replacing. That readers’ question whether scientists and researchers will be even less able to evaluate risks from current and emerging technologies, including biotechnologies.

PSGR ask, will our systems which produce knowledge, be even less able to provide information and intelligence to guide decision-making and support policy-makers, and enhance democratic life?

When powerful agencies hijack democratic systems, published as these two papers, arrives at the conclusion that current governance processes and conventions have been corrupted and eroded to such a substantial degree that the national interest may not be protected, and well-being of New Zealand, including the productive capacity of human and environmental health, cannot be assured. This is why PSGR are recommending that two separate public inquiries are undertaken.

To access the PDF: Part II paper, The Case of Science System Reform, click here.

Reference:

[1] PSGR (2025) When powerful agencies hijack democratic systems. Part I: The case of gene technology regulatory reform. See recommendations pages 50-51. Bruning, J.R., Dommisse, E.. Physicians & Scientists for Global Responsibility New Zealand. ISBN 978-1-0670678-0-9

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WHEN POWERFUL AGENCIES HIJACK DEMOCRATIC SYSTEMS PART II: The case of science system reform (2025)

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