No silos or ivory towers: How Wellington's innovation hub aims to supercharge science

Saturday, 20 May 2023

Tucked in the shadow of Wainuiomata Hill, up past the industrial area of Seaview, hundreds of researchers are busy in state-of-the-art specialist workshops creating space propulsion systems and sustainable electric aircraft, and tinkering with biochemistry.

This is Gracefield Innovation Quarter, the little-known high-tech hub that’s powering economic activity from an overlooked area of wider Wellington. Cool science abounds within, from workers at the Ferrier Research Institute, Robinson Research Institute, drug manufacturer GlycoSyn and Callaghan Innovation, to name only a few.

Other residents include privately owned enterprises, and research and development teams delivering for major national and international companies.

“It’s really good to have this nice little community around with similar people,” said Jérôme Leveneur​, the chief technology officer at Bspkl​, a startup based at Gracefield that’s developing products to benefit the clean hydrogen industry.

On Thursday the Government announced $451 million would be put towards three multi-institution research hubs in Wellington – including the Gracefield quarter – to bring scientists together to increase collaboration and ensure better use of equipment and facilities. A large portion of the funding would go towards physical space and facilities.

The Gracefield hub will focus on research, technology and innovation. The other two hubs – a climate change and disaster resilience research hub, and a corridor of health and wellbeing research including a pandemic centre – will be located in near Niwa at Greta Point and through Newtown, Mt Cook and Kelburn, respectively.

The idea with the hubs is to link university students to industry and Crown Research Institutes to increase opportunities for industry training and applied PhDs.

“These hubs will place greater emphasis on innovation and create an environment that helps start-ups to grow and become significant contributors to the New Zealand economy through stronger co-ordination of innovation and commercialisation activities,” said Research, Science and Innovation Minister Ayesha Verrall.

Already, Gracefield is Callaghan Innovation’s largest site. It is billed as the ideal place to set up high-tech business, offering access to specialist labs, plants, equipment, facilities and talent to enable the development of products.

Those who work on-site get to collaborate with technical experts on things like project management, funding, and research and development.

“The [quarter] provides a platform to connect and strengthen collaboration between Māori, academia, public sector and industry around shared priorities and areas of opportunity,” said Callaghan Innovation chief innovation development officer Hayden Whelan.

And the range of science coming out of Gracefield is broad – facilities from glassblowing to fluid extraction to measurement to prototyping are offered on a short or long-term basis.

In 2019, the Government announced $75m in investment for the site to bolster its run-down facilities to help transform the economy to become more sustainable, productive and focused on growing research and development.

The new investment announced this week is in line with the Government’s goal of increasing spend on research and development to 2% of GDP by 2027 – a goal that hinges on more businesses commercialising their science by putting products and services on the market.

Since the 2019 investment, Gracefield has been undergoing extensive upgrades, including the introduction of new, adaptable, modular labs and offices last year, which can have varied use and help enable scientists, researchers and innovators to collaborate.

Some buildings on site have been demolished, and a new hazardous goods facility has also been built.

But a visit to the site earlier this year revealed issues yet to be solved – many run down buildings sat empty and are dotted in between shiny new labs.

Callaghan Innovation says there’s a range of opportunities to develop the Gracefield site further given its size, existing consents and its concentration of deep tech capability.

Those who use the space say it’s critical that innovation hubs, like Gracefield, exist to provide co-location of research, and shared connections and services.

“Synergies” were created when working around other innovators, said Tijs Robinson​, the chief executive of Hot Lime Labs, based at Gracefield, adding it was important researchers were “not stuck in ivory towers”.

Evidence shows co-location of innovators leads to higher levels of connectivity, networking and collaboration.

Other benefits of grouping innovators together include increased commercialisation and quality of research and development, Whelan said, adding the Gracefield quarter was a “vibrant, supportive and connected … community”.

There was also greater potential for breakthrough innovations when working in a hub.

Nick Long​, director of Robinson Research Institute, which is also based at Gracefield, said it was as important to have a shared culture and knowledge as much as it was to have access to shared resource.

Robinson is a world-leader in superconducting research, but its innovators also work to create green steel and operate in the space tech race, making electric propulsion systems for spacecraft.

Recently, it’s attracted attention for building a new type of electric motor that could power the next generation of electric aircraft. That project is backed by some of the industry’s biggest players including Nasa, Pratt & Whitney and Air New Zealand.

Working out of Gracefield, there was healthy competition in attracting staff, but also co-operation on research goals, Long said. Robinson’s kaupapa was all about making impact in the world, and to that end, it was important not to work in a silo.

A stereotype exists in the tech world of researchers and innovators living in echo chambers or their own bubbles. But lab work doesn’t have to be lonely, Long said. “The research community has definitely become better connected [in recent years].”

While it was tightly networked, the sector could also be hard to break into for up-and-coming talent – hence the benefit of the one-stop-shops having tight links back to the universities.

Gary Evans​, director of the Ferrier Research Institute which is involved in discovering new drugs among other things, said the most critical areas for Gracefield that needed attention were improved and larger spaces that would help talent across the quarter come together, “collide” and share ideas.

It could do with a “massive overhaul” in terms of its look and feel, Evans said.

The next step for the $451m in new funding was for business cases for the hubs to be finalised. After then construction on the new buildings could begin.