New President for Association of CRI's

Association of Crown Research Institutes

For immediate release 4 September 2007

New President for Association of Crown Research Institutes

Dr Alex Malahoff, chief executive of GNS Science has been elected President of the Association of Crown Research Institutes (ACRI). He succeeds Dr Warren Parker, chief executive of Landcare Research.

Dr Andrew West, chief executive of AgResearch, becomes Vice-President.

The Crown Research Institutes are New Zealand’s largest science enterprises, and are owned by the Crown. The nine CRIs earn more than $600 million annually, and have 4,200 staff in 50 sites from Invermay to Kaitaia.

Alex Malahoff has been CEO of GNS Science since July 2002, after 35 years overseas in USA academic and federal science positions. He had also served three years as a GNS Director.

Alex remains Professor of Oceanography at the University of Hawaii and a director of the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory, a world-class centre for deep-sea exploration. He previously served in Washington DC as Program Director, Office of Naval Research, US Navy, and subsequently as Chief Scientist, National Ocean Survey, NOAA (National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration).

He has many academic and professional honours from the USA.

Alex left New Zealand in the 1960s with an MSc from Victoria University of Wellington and gained a PhD in geophysics at the University of Hawaii. In 2001 he received an honorary DSc from Victoria University for his achievements in oceanography, geophysics, and marine engineering.

Professor Malahoff said: “The OECD report on New Zealand’s innovation system, bluntly stating that New Zealand must innovate or stagnate, is a clarion call for any one concerned about our nation’s current and future wealth and welfare.

“The chief executives of the Crown Research Institutes are focussed on delivering benefit to New Zealand and, collectively, demonstrating the ongoing value of our science and its application to New Zealand issues.

“Issues such as climate change, energy, carbon capture and storage, biosecurity and limits to natural resources such as water pose substantial challenges. But they are also great opportunities for New Zealand.

“Our local solutions are already opening tremendous global opportunities for New Zealand science and technology businesses. But we can do more, faster, and with greater return to New Zealand if we rapidly increase government and business investment into RS&T.

“The magnitude both of challenge and opportunity is such that we need to address our overall investment in research, science and technology.”

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