Tim McNamara has an Olympic Village of Science proposal for Callaghan Innovation's Gracefield campus

By Tim McNamara*

Later Monday, a sombre meeting will be held hosted by the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce to discuss how the city should respond to the dissolution of Callaghan Innovation and the general shift to restructure New Zealand's commercial science sector.

Yet, there's a small chance participants discover there is huge potential hiding here.

The primary concern will be what is happening with the Gracefield campus where the science functions of Callaghan Innovation are carried out.

Here is the assessment of the science advisory group, in the report issued August last year, paragraph 177 says:  "The Gracefield site is expensive to maintain, degraded and not attractive to many clients because of its state and location. There are many legacy issues to the site that are expensive, and continued investment to maintain a substandard site seems unwise."

Pretty dire, isn't it?

At first, yes. Yet, it's still worth some analysis. Let's zoom in on the words "state and location". The first rationale is the state of the facilities and what people might expect when they walk to a precinct that's primarily focused on publicly-funded research.

Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on getting things back up to scratch from a leaky and unsafe state. The working environment is now functional.

As per Callaghan Innovation's latest annual report, they've "[b]uilt 10 new fit-for-purpose buildings and several specialised containers totalling 2880m² to provide new laboratories" and have "[r]efurbished 11 workspaces totalling 2519m² including laboratories, offices, and logistics".

Is that sufficient, though? Well, let's consider alternatives. I visited CERN in 2022 and I can assure you that it is not an attractive place to visit. The walls of its corridors are drab. Several lights don't work.

The lino flooring is ripped in places. And yet scientists from the entire world are more than happy to work there. In fact, they are happy that money isn't being spent on lavish fitouts.

The same can be said about almost all publicly-funded research institutes worldwide. There's more work to do, but that work will need to happen anyway. Demolition and remedial works will need to happen whether the science exists at Gracefield or not.

Then the question becomes whether to renew the buildings in the same area or somewhere else. This decision then might hinge on the location issue.

Location is something that is more fixable than it seems. Currently, the campus feels far away. So, let's bring people closer, which will bring everything else closer.

Create a destination area that caters to post-gradate students, professional scientists, and their families. Allow for scientists and their families to live on-site or nearby with medium to high density housing, making retail and hospitality businesses viable and the whole area more vibrant.

Open the gates more frequently, hold more talks and seminars. Create a space where people want to visit, explore and take photographs of.

Where will the money come from to build these new dwellings? That's up to the government to decide, either directly or as a shareholding minister in a new entity.

Additional investment to create a thriving precinct could come from private developers, public funds or some mix.

In the worst case, we'll create a few homes for the estimated 40,000 new residents that the city will welcome in the next 30 years.

It would also generate long-term returns for the region instead of leaving behind a vacant site requiring ongoing maintenance and fading into disuse.

Nestled between a stream and the hills, with lots of parks and walks nearby, the campus itself has a lovely setting.

Increase walking and cycle access across to Waiwhetu and the Hutt River. Yes, it's at the fringe of a large industrial area, but that too can be seen as a feature.

Metaphorically and physically, the campus sits between science and industry.

Let's create the Olympic Village of Science in Lower Hutt. With effort, the area itself could be a major drawcard for potential researchers. Reinvigorating the precinct allows the country to gain some return on the many investments that have been made in the decades past, while maximising social and economic benefits for the decades ahead.

Somehow we need to find the confidence to create a city that is proud of its science sector.

*Tim McNamara runs the local tech company Accelerant.dev. During his Masters in Public Policy, he was awarded the Laurie Cameron Scholarship for his work on how the research sector is funded.