The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) was a government science agency in New Zealand, founded in 1926 and broken into Crown Research Institutes in 1992.
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History
DSIR was founded in 1926 by Ernest Marsden after calls from Ernest Rutherford for government to support education and research and on the back of the Imperial Economic Conference in London in October and November 1923, when various colonies discussed setting up such departments. It initially received funding from sources such as the Empire Marketing Board. The initial plans also included a new agricultural college, to be jointly founded by Auckland and Victoria University Colleges, Palmerston North was chosen as the site for this and it grew to become Massey University.
It was reconstituted into 10 semi-independent entities called Crown Research Institutes by the Crown Research Institutes Act 1992, with some further consolidation since.
Structure
DSIR initially had five divisions:
Grasslands in Palmerston North
Plant Diseases in Auckland
Entomology, attached to the Cawthron Institute in Nelson
Soil Survey (later Soil Bureau) in Taita
Agronomy (later Crop Research Division) in Lincoln
The Grasslands Division originally included the New Zealand Dairy Research Institute, which became the Fonterra Research and Development Centre in 2001.
The Geophysics Division was established in 1951.
The Antarctic Division was established in 1959 and became Antarctica New Zealand in 1996.
List of directors-general
The directors-general (chief executives) of DSIR were:
Ernest Marsden – 1926 to 1947
Frank Callaghan – 1947 to 1953
Bill Hamilton – 1953 to 1971
Eddie Robertson – 1971 to 1980
Bruce Miller – 1980 to 1984
Jim Ellis – 1984 to 1989
Mike Collins – 1989 to 1994