Department of Scientific and Industrial Research

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. Foundation 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. 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 Geophysics Division from 1951 The later Antarctic Division became Antarctica New Zealand in 1996.