5 days ago
Drop the ball on innovation, Auckland, and it's everyone's loss
Comment: If Auckland were to tragically pass away tomorrow, the cause of death would likely be listed as transport dysfunction, unaffordable housing, and environmental stress – the city's most visible, immediate ailments. But if it were to fade 50 years from now, the cause would likely be deeper: a long-running failure to invest in innovation, human capital and other core assets.
For the past two years, the State of the City international benchmarking report has consistently shown that innovation and skills development are among Auckland's lowest-performing areas – ranking even below transport and housing affordability in both international performance and perception rankings.
These deficits don't show up on our rush-hour delays and real estate doldrums and so our news headlines are dominated by the day to day of potholes and property prices rather than how well we're building the capability and solutions to solve these challenges.
That's why the announcement during last week's TechWeek by Mayor Wayne Brown of the new Auckland Innovation and Technology Alliance may prove to be one of the most important steps Auckland has taken toward actually solving its most persistent challenges.
The alliance, an initiative supported by the Committee for Auckland, the Auckland Tech Council, and the Auckland Council Group, will bring together leaders from business, investment, research, and local and central government. Its mission is to provide strategic leadership, improve coordination, and drive deal making and investment to position Auckland as a globally competitive tech and innovation hub.
Importantly, it can help generate the insight, capability and investment needed to solve our headline problems more effectively. It could also help Auckland better align its strengths with the national reforms underway in science and technology.
Unless New Zealand begins to seriously address our persistent innovation and skills gaps, we will continue to undercut our capacity to tackle the main issues we fixate on. Auckland has a significant innovation base – including our startup ecosystem, well-regarded universities and advanced technology firms – but it is not being supported, developed, or funded to the level seen in other comparable cities.
International city experience
Internationally, mayoral leadership has been a defining feature of successful urban innovation efforts. In peer cities like Brisbane, Vancouver, Copenhagen and Helsinki, mayors or city leaders have led or supported innovation alliances that directly link technology development to real urban challenges.
In Barcelona, Tel Aviv, Toronto and Boston, mayoral backing of innovation districts and alliances has unlocked national support, attracted private capital, and elevated the global competitiveness of their cities.
Take Boston's Innovation District, originally launched by Mayor Tom Menino. By convening universities, startups, real estate developers and the state government, the city turned a neglected waterfront into one of the world's most vibrant innovation hubs. In Barcelona, the 22@ district, led by mayor Joan Clos, attracted more than 4500 companies and over 56,000 new jobs, catalysing a transformation from industrial decay to digital-era growth.
The message is clear: cities have the convening power and proximity to act, and mayoral leadership can spark broader action.
The benefits of these alliances are now well documented. Cities that align policy, research, entrepreneurship and investment through shared platforms deliver faster precinct development, more targeted capital deployment, better talent retention, and stronger appeal to international investors. They are also more responsive to global shifts in AI, sustainability, and advanced manufacturing.
Of course, not all alliances succeed. Some fail due to vague mandates, bureaucratic overreach, or lack of follow-through. Others stall when political momentum fades. The key is focus. Smart alliances are lean, delivery-oriented, and co-governed by the people who actually drive innovation. These will be essential design principles as Auckland builds its new alliance.
Another critical factor is central government engagement. In nearly every successful international example, central governments play a supporting role — through infrastructure investment, funding alignment, or enabling regulation.
Australia's former City Deals framework helped cities like Brisbane and Townsville align local innovation goals with national priorities. In the UK, Innovate UK co-invests in regional innovation clusters, recognising that cities are where applied R&D meets real-world challenges.
New Zealand underperformance
By contrast, New Zealand has underperformed. Despite a growing global consensus – from the OECD, World Economic Forum, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and our own Sir Peter Gluckman – that cities must play a central role in driving innovation, we continue to centralise innovation policy and funding in Wellington, with limited regional differentiation.
Auckland, despite being home to more than a third of the country's population and its largest concentration of tech companies, startups and universities, has had no formal role in shaping or steering national innovation strategy.
This is a missed opportunity. Compared with our peer cities, Auckland's innovation potential is under-supported by national policy, under-developed in terms of coordination and investment, and under-valued in our national narrative.
There is now an overwhelming body of international evidence that city-led innovation alliances improve national outcomes. They test solutions faster, adapt more nimbly, and build resilient, place-based innovation ecosystems. A more distributed, city-partnered model is not a threat to national strategy – it's an enabler.
The Government should partner with the Auckland Innovation and Technology Alliance. That means engaging, co-investing, and aligning R&D tax, investment attraction, and science funding tools to better reflect city-based strengths.
The Government's upcoming science reforms and its new Regional Deals policy – which aims to deliver long-term place-based economic growth – provide an opening to finally embed this approach. Auckland, alongside cities like Wellington and Christchurch and others, could be part of that new approach. The alliance could serve as a model.
Aucklanders will continue to wake up worrying about traffic congestion, house prices, or the cost of living. But our innovation and knowledge gaps are quietly limiting our ability to fix those very problems. A better-supported, city-led innovation ecosystem won't just grow our economy. It will shape how Auckland moves, builds, and adapts, and ensure that if the city is ever eulogised, the cause of death won't be neglect.
Mark Thomas is a director with the Committee for Auckland, which has been advising Mayor Wayne Brown on the Auckland Innovation and Technology Alliance.
