Wellington Regional Strategy

The WRS Summit took place on November 29 at the Icon Restaurant in Te Papa. The theme of the summit was "Doing the business with the region's flash science". This looked at how we could better facilitate innovation in research and development (R & D) across the region. Participants came from a range of organisations such as universities, Crown Research Institutes, investment banks and businesses established to capture R & D.

Our keynote speaker was Professor Kenneth Husted, Professor of Innovation and Research Management at the Auckland University Business School. He spoke about what is needed to establish a regional innovation system and based his discussion around the establishment of the Danish wind technology industry, which came from small businesses needing to develop new technological expertise. His powerpoint presentation is attached here.

Suggestions made during the breakout sessions included establishing internships, doing more work to connect business with universities, closer collaboration between the universities and the incubator, and more promotion of our successful companies. Many of these are already being implemented by Grow Wellington, but, given the support and mandate of the Summit, the organisation will now put more emphasis on this work.

Grow Wellington has now employed an Innovation Champion. This person’s role is to ensure the requisite parts of an innovation and commercialisation system are in place. The Innovation Champion will be responsible for driving initiatives to ensure the right conversations and relationships are being facilitated – and, in the longer term, for delivering results. 

Other key points from the summit include developing a vision for commercialisation for the region, setting up "After 5pm" speed dating meetings, forums for pitching ideas like Dragons Den, forums for understanding needs of investors, and developing avenues for businesses to network with universities.

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