About the Innovation

The most inventive thing that Marine Botanist Dr. Irene Novaczek does is to reinvent herself to suit a changing world with changing needs. She has not remained tied to the discipline in which she was trained, but has applied her knowledge of "how to learn" and "how to discover things" to a wide range of topics. Starting with seaweed ecology, she moved into microbiology, shellfish toxicology and small business and product development. She has studied the structure and impact of traditional institutions and, most recently, the impacts of information technology on society.

Irene created an innovation on an existing production method to manufacture liquid fertilizer from fish waste. This product is now available commercially. She was also involved in developing a range of seaweed food products with wonderful names like "Sea Licorice" for sale in health food markets. Several of the products were (and still are) completely unique and never marketed before or since. One such product is crisp, solar-fried Chorda.

Her work in shellfish toxicology included an attempt to devise a way to clean toxic mussels, using innovative approaches that had never been tried before. Though not fully successful, her findings suggested ways that mussels could be made to clean themselves out more quickly. Another project involved the development of a series of manuals for the production of shellfish products based on local recipes, and a manual for setting up small businesses in developing countries.

In Indonesia, she developed community-based ecotourism and taught villagers how to monitor the local coral reefs and shellfish resources. Irene led in groundbreaking research in the area of traditional, community-based resource management in the Spice Islands of Indonesia. This work is currently being published, and it is considered a highly significant contribution to the field.

Irene is committed to empowering and enabling the poorest in society to develop self-sustaining small businesses based on local resources. She believes that this work is truly inventive since there is little money to work with, and equipment, processes and recipes must be amended to suit often difficult circumstances.

About the Innovator

Irene has her Ph.D. in Marine Botany from Auckland University, New Zealand. Even as a student, Irene had a unique perspective on science. Her research methods were interdisciplinary. At the time (mid 1970's), such a multi-faceted approach to research was rare. Irene writes that "one reviewer of my work in marine ecology went so far as to call it 'paradigm shifting'."

To give a concrete example, while working on her thesis on the ecology of large seaweed in New Zealand, not only did Irene monitor seaweed through diving expeditions, but she also used a range of laboratory techniques as well as doing research into climate and ecology.

Irene's broad approach to marine ecology lead her to become involved in environmental activism throughout the 1990's. In one instance, Irene was the only scientist who was prepared to give an opinion to the public on the environmental impact of a proposed industrial expansion. Throughout her career, Irene has faced challenges such as closed minds, threats of violence, new languages and cultures, tropical diseases and more. On the positive side, she has fine friends, supportive colleagues, a husband who looks after the home front, parents who let her be herself, and children who are proud of her accomplishments.