Speech at launch of Getparticipants.com

Thank you for inviting me here to launch Getparticipants.com. I would like to congratulate mother and son duo Jude and Jamie Mannion on the launch of their new service. I also acknowledge the Vice-Chancellor of the Auckland University of Technology, Derek Cormack.

For particular congratulations, I would like to single out Jamie. Jamie identified the need for this service during his Master's research project, as he struggled to recruit participants for his own studies. One thing that stands out about entrepreneurs is their ability to see a struggle as a chance to be innovative.

It is one thing to identify an opportunity, but we should recognise that Jamie's drive turned an opportunity into a service. There has been some recognition already, when the concept for Getparticipants.com won the SPARK Entrepreneurship Challenge's New Business Idea, worth $40,000.

Universities are naturally one of our best sources of new ideas and inspiration.  It is encouraging to see a growing culture shift amongst researchers, with business imperatives and academic excellence becoming equal partners. This is particularly true of our young and emerging researchers.

Getparticipants.com has the potential to accelerate patient enrolment in health studies. Each year, around 4000 studies receive ethical approval to recruit participants in New Zealand. Up to 75 % of these studies fail to recruit on time.

Getparticipants.com will reduce this recruitment problem. This will save time, and enable effort and resources to go towards health studies. I support any initiative which reduces wastage in research. I have been working on simplifying the funding system, so that senior scientists can spend more time doing research, and less filling out reports.

In the Budget, we increased Health Research Council funding by 13%. The more efficiently this research funding is used, the better.

This Government has recognised that an entrepreneurial culture will be vital to improving economic growth. Growing high-value businesses is the key action that will enable us to close the economic gap with Australia.

While New Zealanders think of growing the economy as selling more products, the services industry has even greater economic potential. Services increase productivity, or enable completely new ways of doing business. They use people's talents and intellectual property. This is an important sector of the economy to grow.

Another area that Getparticipants.com will address is community and society interest in science. I am told that during the development of this service, Jamie found that people were very interested in contributing to research. Researchers rely on the generosity of people to give their time and indeed, their bodies to science. Health research progress would stop without participants.

The Government is keen to raise the visibility of science in New Zealand. A society that appreciates the value of science will be more able to use science to progress and grow. To this end, we appointed the Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister. Professor Sir Peter Gluckman has stimulated tremendous debate within the research community, and has undoubtedly lifted the profile of science in New Zealand.

To quote Sir Peter: "Science is at the heart of almost everything this country must do to meet the collective ambition of virtually every New Zealander - a healthy, socially connected community in a good environment enjoying a very high standard of living." Getparticipants.com is part of a bigger drive to use science to lift New Zealand's performance.

Getparticipants.com is an entrepreneurial idea that can improve efficiency, and raise community participation in research. I am sure it will go well for all concerned, and prove its usefulness to health researchers in New Zealand.