High-tech hubs are being heralded as a way to help stretch limited research and development funds and attract more investment.
A $4 million business hub in central Christchurch will start up in a few months, partly in a bid to put quake-affected high-technology firms back on their feet, and perhaps even help them expand in export markets.
The Government is investing $1.8 million in the Enterprise Precinct and Innovation Campus (EPIC) in partnership with the Christchurch City Council and the private sector, and will house 17 tenants, including software and game developers.
Project director, Wil McLellan hopes the hub will help to rebrand Christchurch as a high-tech centre.
"Why not be the city of innovation?" he says. "If we can stimulate collaboration so that our leading innovative companies can grow here, we don't need huge natural resources to do it. Innovation is in the mind".
Export New Zealand executive director, Catherine Beard, says collaborative models work well overseas, and New Zealand also needs to test them out.
Creative clusters worked well in Wellington -- some of them feeding off the creative industry around the Peter Jackson "empire", she said.
"One way to leverage and grow quicker is to work together," said Ms Beard. "We have to be smart about using the limited resources that we have".
