RNZ: NZ needs more entrepreneurs. Will its new tertiary strategy reward real risk takers?
RNZ: NZ needs more entrepreneurs. Will its new tertiary strategy reward real risk takers?
The government’s recently released Tertiary Education Strategy 2025-2030 signals a shift towards harnessing the sector to address New Zealand’s long-standing productivity issues. But the strategy and its goals aren’t necessarily aligned.
Universities and polytechnics are now expected to promote innovation, accelerate commercialisation and build significantly stronger entrepreneurial capabilities. Measuring those things will be the challenge.
The strategy identifies “particular gaps in market-driven entrepreneurial skills” and instructs universities to expand entrepreneurial education, especially for graduate researchers.
It also acknowledges that more people will build careers through self-employment, freelancing or portfolio work.
In parallel, a new national intellectual property policy gives academic staff the first right to commercialise government-funded research, signalling a stronger expectation that universities will generate new ventures and technologies.
The country wants more innovators, founders and risk-takers. Yet several elements of the strategy, especially the way performance may be assessed, risk unintentionally discouraging the very entrepreneurial pathways it aims to promote.
