Why is New Zealand different to other countries in respect of innovation policy? Why can’t we just follow Israel or Ireland – or even Australia?
Answer
Our local economy is small, and we are a very long way away from our customers. That means we struggle to attract good management talent and investment capital, or even to keep up with the latest technical or market developments, and we have to go global too soon – as small, under-funded, and unsophisticated operations. That means we need to tweak our immigration settings to attract management talent to lead our companies, as well as bringing in other high-value skills to support innovation.