Science and technology in Pacific Island countries encompass a diverse range of activities and innovations that address the unique challenges faced by this geographically dispersed region. Despite limited resources and infrastructural constraints, Pacific Island nations have made notable progress in areas such as digital connectivity, agricultural innovation, and climate resilience. Advancements in mobile and internet technologies have improved access to information and services, while regional cooperation has fostered the development of research networks and shared scientific infrastructure. The application of emerging technologies, including nuclear science for agriculture and DNA monitoring for biosecurity, is increasingly shaping policy and development initiatives. However, the region continues to face obstacles such as data scarcity, limited research funding, and vulnerability to climate change, necessitating ongoing collaboration and investment to realize the full potential of science and technology for sustainable development.

Socio-economic context

Trends Pacific Island economies are mostly dependent on natural resources, with a tiny manufacturing sector and no heavy industry. In Fiji and Papua New Guinea, for instance, there is a need to adopt automated machinery and design in forestry and to improve training, in order to add value to exports.

Papua New Guinea experienced the strongest economic growth between 2005 and 2013 (60%), during the commodities boom. Even during the global financial and economic crisis of 2008–2009, its economy grew by 13%. Vanuatu saw the next strongest growth (35%) over this period, including 10% growth in 2008–2009. Growth was more pedestrian in the Marshall Islands (a cumulative 19%), Tuvalu (16%), Samoa (15%), Kiribati (13%), Fiji (12%) and Tonga (8%). The economies of the Federated States of Micronesia and Palau actually shrank over this nine-year period. Samoa, the Marshall Islands and Fiji all experienced recession in 2008 and 2009.

The trade balance is more skewed towards imports than exports, with the exception of Papua New Guinea, which has a mining industry. There is growing evidence that Fiji is becoming a re-export hub in the Pacific; between 2009 and 2013, its re-exports grew threefold, accounting for more than half of all exports by Pacific Island states. Samoa can also expect to become more integrated in global markets from now on, having joined the World Trade Organization in 2012. Fiji, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands are also members of the World Trade Organization.

Pacific Island states make up a very small share of the South Pacific's high-tech exports. These exports receded between 2008 and 2013 by 46% for Fiji and by 41% for Samoa, according to the United Nations' Comtrade database. Fiji's high-tech exports were down from US$5.0 million to US$2.7 million and Samoa's from US$0.3 to US$0.2 million.

In 2013, the majority of Fijian high-tech exports were pharmaceutical products (84%), whereas Samoa exports mainly scientific instruments (86%) and Kiribati non-electrical machinery (79%). Armaments make up 92% of high-exports from the Solomon Islands.

Internet access By 2013, one in three inhabitants of Fiji, Tonga and Tuvalu had Internet access. Growth in Internet access since 2010 has levelled out the disparity between countries to some extent, although connectivity remained extremely low in Vanuatu (11%), the Solomon Islands (8%) and Papua New Guinea (7%) in 2013.

Advances in mobile phone technology have clearly been a factor in the provision of Internet access to remote areas. The flow of knowledge and information through internet is likely to play an important role in the more effective dissemination and application of knowledge across the vast Pacific Island nations.

Mobile Internet penetration was the lowest (18%) of any region in the world in 2018 but this figure is expected to double by 2023. In this remote region, high-speed Internet access comes from laying an expensive undersea cable. Recent links have been created for Papua New Guinea (2020), the Solomon Islands (2020) and Tonga (2018).

Pacific countries are reshaping their social and economic environments to meet digital demands. To benefit from modern digital and other technological tools, regulatory bodies have adopted social media platforms and messaging systems in official protocols to disseminate disaster warnings in Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and Niue, as well as weather forecasts and information on climate change.

In 2015, the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders established an ICT Working Group made up of CROP agencies that is co-ordinated by the University of the South Pacific. However, no regional mechanism has since emerged in this area.

In the Boe Declaration on Regional Security, produced during the 2018 Pacific Islands Forum, Pacific leaders expanded the concept of security to include cybersecurity. Efforts are under way to assess cybersecurity capacity in Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia, in tandem with the United Nations International Telecommunication Union and other partners. Samoa has been the first to develop a National Cyber Security Strategy 2016–2021.

Regional initiatives

Regional bodies addressing technological issues Both the largest and smallest Pacific nations acknowledge that taking a regional approach to science and technology offers them greater opportunities for institutional development. This approach is encapsulated in the Framework for Pacific Regionalism (2014). All 14 nations have mandated the agencies attached to the Council of Regional Organisations of the Pacific (CROP) to conduct technical backstopping. CROP agencies partially fulfill the role that a science council might play in other regions. However, none of these agencies has a specific mandate or policy for science and technology.

Pacific Island states have established a number of regional bodies to address technological issues for sectorial development. Examples are the Council of Regional Organisations of the Pacific, such as the Pacific Community (SPC); Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat; and Secretariat of the Pacific Region Environmental Programme.

The Ministers of Education from Pacific Island countries signed a Ministerial communiqué on Pacific Science, Technology and Innovation in 2017, in which they committed to developing regional and national STI policies and roadmaps. However, no policy or roadmap has since been published for want of resources.

The 2014 Small Island Developing States (SIDS) Accelerated Modalities of Action Pathway (SAMOA Pathway) identified science and technology as being critical to SIDS’ sustainable development.

The need for research is being recognized at the regional level. The Pacific Community Centre for Ocean Science was established in New Caledonia in 2015, hosted by SPC. Construction of the Pacific Climate Change Centre was completed in Apia, Samoa in 2019 (see below).

Pacific–Europe Network for Science, Technology and Innovation

The establishment of the Pacific–Europe Network for Science, Technology and Innovation (PACE-Net Plus) goes some way towards filling the void in science policy, at least temporarily. Funded by the European Commission within its Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2007–2013), this project has spanned the period 2013–2016 and thus overlaps with the European Union's Horizon 2020 programme.

The objectives of PACE–Net Plus are to reinforce the dialogue between the Pacific region and Europe in science, technology and innovation; to support biregional research and innovation through calls for research proposals; and to promote scientific excellence and industrial and economic competition. Ten of its 16 members come from the Pacific region and the remainder from Europe.

The Pacific partners are the Australian National University, Montroix Pty Ltd (Australia), University of the South Pacific, Institut Malardé in French Caledonia, National Centre for Technological Research into Nickel and its Environment in New Caledonia, South Pacific Community, Landcare Research Ltd in New Zealand, University of Papua New Guinea, Samoa National University and the Vanuatu Cultural Centre.

The other six partners are: the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the Institut de recherche pour le développement in France, the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation, a joint international institution of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States and the European Union, the Sociedade Portuguesa de Inovação, United Nations Industrial Development Organization and Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Ecology in Germany.

PACE-Net Plus focuses on three societal challenges: Health, demographic change and well-being; Food security, sustainable agriculture, marine and maritime research and the bio-economy; and Climate action, resource efficiency and raw materials. PACE–Net Plus has organized a series of high-level policy dialogue platforms alternately in the Pacific region and in Brussels, the headquarters of the European Commission. These platforms bring together key government and institutional stakeholders in both regions, around STI issues.

A conference held in Suva (Fiji) in 2012 under the umbrella of PACE–Net Plus produced recommendations for a strategic plan for research, innovation and development in the Pacific. The conference report published in 2013 identified R&D needs in the Pacific in seven areas: health; agriculture and forestry; fisheries and aquaculture; biodiversity and ecosystem management; freshwater; natural hazards; and energy.

Pacific Islands University Research Network

Noting the general absence of regional and national policies and plans for science, technology and innovation in the Pacific, the PACE–Net Plus conference established the Pacific Islands University Research Network to support intra- and inter- regional knowledge creation and sharing and to prepare succinct recommendations for the development of a regional policy framework for science, technology and innovation.

This formal research network will complement the Fiji-based University of the South Pacific, which has campuses in other Pacific Island countries.

Importance of data to inform policy It was intended for the policy role of the Pacific Islands University Research Network to be informed by evidence gleaned from measuring capability in science, technology and innovation but the absence of data presents a formidable barrier. As of 2015, only Fiji had recent data on expenditure on research and development (R&D) and there were no recent data on researchers and technicians for any of the developing Pacific island countries.

Without relevant data, it will be difficult for developing Pacific Island states to monitor their progress towards Sustainable Development target 9.5, namely: Enhance scientific research, upgrade the technological capabilities of industrial sectors in all countries, in particular developing countries, including, by 2030, encouraging innovation and substantially increasing the number of research and development workers per 1 million people and public and private research and development spending. The two indicators chosen by the United Nations to measure progress are research and development expenditure as a proportion of GDP (9.5.1) and Researchers (in full-time equivalent) per million inhabitants (9.5.2).

Efforts to collate and co-ordinate regional and national data are growing. Such efforts include the PRISM database from the SPC Statistics for Development Division and the national and regional environmental data portals created by countries with the support of the Inform Project.

National policy issues

Fiji

Higher education