New Zealand Association of Scientists co-presidents Lucy Stewart and Troy Baisden have made initial comments on the Budget released by the coalition government this week, expressing their concerns about the ongoing collapse in funding for the research and university sector. Their article has been edited to fit interest.co.nz's format.
More investment in research and universities helps to lift nations out of recessions, enhances future wealth and productivity, without fuelling inflation, NZAS asserts, but this year's Budget will not deliver on that.
Normally when assessing a Budget from the science policy perspective, we can look for bright spots - new spending and initiatives. Analysing this year's Budget is an exercise in determining how bad the damage will be, on the back of previously-announced cuts such as the cancellation of the Science City infrastructure programme and the failure to renew the National Science Challenges.
There is one genuinely welcome new initiative - funding for Geonet, the National Seismic Hazard Model, and the National Geohazards Monitoring Centre has been extended out until 2027, acknowledging the long-term nature of the funding needed to support this vital work in our geologically active nation.
However, looking out to 2027 the Budget has also forecast a total of $35 million dollars of actual cuts to the Marsden Fund, the Health Research Fund, the Strategic Science and Innovation Fund, and the Endeavour Fund in that year - perhaps to generously give researchers three years to find new jobs overseas.
Spending is otherwise flat, in a time of record inflation and on the back of decades of underfunding of the sector. There is no sign of anything which could come close to making up for the loss of the National Science Challenges, which NZAS has already seen translate into proposed job cuts in the public science sector.
"I expect to see more job losses across the sector before the end of the year. This failure to invest, at a time when the research and science sector has struggled to do more with insufficient funding for years already, will have inevitable consequences in loss of expertise as people move to better-funded research sectors overseas, as infrastructure continues to fail, and as research simply does not get done." - Dr Lucy Stewart
The lack of funding follows a familiar pattern established over many years.
Today’s budget doubles down on a pattern spanning four decades, in which New Zealand’s governments have been world leaders in choosing not to invest in the future. Aside from 1991, I doubt there’s ever been such a clear case that we’re determined to fall behind peer nations with our investment in research, science, innovation and technology. The same goes for the tertiary education sector.
"The budget is worse than a 'nothing burger' for science. The relatively positive support for GeoNet and key capability GNS Science appear to be propping up areas previously funded by the Earthquake Commission (EQC) and the National Science Challenge on Resilience" - Professor Troy Baisden.
There are no other bail-outs for areas of national importance that had been supported by National Science Challenges. These received about $97 million per year in their peak years, with $64 million this year and no funding after next month. There are also no new bail-outs or capital expenditure support packages for the ‘Science City’ institutions in Wellington, most notably Callaghan Innovation.
Not even agricultural research was spared from the Budget cuts, which is surprising given the vital importance of the sector to New Zealand's economy.
Given the composition of the coalition, farmers might have hoped for some new research, but if there is I can’t spot it. Instead, the Ministry of Primary Industries is cutting about $4.6 million per year from its Sustainable Land Management and Climate Change Research in coming years (a total cut of $13.6 m over three years).
The total lack of new funding comes on top of the inflation over the past year, and on a background of flat or decreasing funding. Out in 2027 and beyond, there’s a plan to pare back flagship contestable research funds, including Marsden and Endeavour by a small but significant amount.
Although funding for the tertiary sector grew between 2012 and 2019 by around 24%, there seems no intention of resuming that increase.
The Table of Estimates produced with the budget also allows us to look back, from an estimate for the year just ended to finalised funding in previous years. Funding for the entire tertiary education sector has flatlined, following the period when Government helped stabilise the sector during the pandemic’s impacts.
Government research and development (R&D) increased even faster, but is now declining the researchers said. Excluding the R&D Tax Incentive and similar categories, our investment appears to have increased from about $820 million in 2015 to $1.4 billion or more in 2020 and 2021, falling back to $1.15 billion in recent years before stabilising at $1.1 billion.
This explains why times feel tight in parts of the sector doing well, and desperate in others. That should come as no surprise, as cabinet papers from 2021 to the present have expressed a lack of confidence and sought reforms, which will now extend in the university sector.
The pressure is on Peter Gluckman, leading two advisory groups which must make a case for the reforms to help us rebuild the mojo that drives investment and success across the science system and universities. The groups will need to provide vision and hope for science and technology to address our biggest challenges with effective strategies in areas such as primary industries, and coping with climate change and hazards.
Peer nations are investing more and more, and we should as well."
27 Comments
That, sir, is a complete and utter oxymoron.
Equivalent to suggesting they all get taught the Earth is flat.
How can you? (choose to continue to be so ignorant?)
The joke is that the writers are equally short on knowledge; 'More investment in research and universities helps to lift nations out of recessions, enhances future wealth and productivity,'
So they have no idea about the Limits to Growth either. This was the point of my https://www.interest.co.nz/public-policy/122917/murray-grimwood-looks-i… piece.
The NCEA results are pretty damning even at level 1. We are looking at generations where more then 12% don't have access to education or further training and 50% of those who can access education have not completed relevant study for basic mathematics and science.
Seeing kids coming out of schools final years not being able to add to 10 even with the aid of a calculator it is not the teenager that has failed it is the education system over the last 10 years. The student has been disabled by the education system and they have very little opportunities after school to retrain or recoup those lost years without the significant support needed for them (remember community education went the way of the dodo and SM feeds are more prevalent for people to learn from now).
Hmm what F&P Healthcare and F&P manufacturing taught people was that most manufacturing & engineering work was going overseas. It was not just the products but the employment as well. There was very little innovation in that. The products at the time of the internships were also not very innovative and the jobs were not very scientific.
Is that accurate? A lot of the engineering work is still done in NZ for F&P Healthcare, along with a lot of the manufacturing. They have invested quite a lot into their new facility as well. We have a lot of engineering talent in New Zealand I don't know if it's fair to dismiss that.
Considering the comparison to before the main company processes are offshore. Engineering in the manufacturing sense takes on more then the back office management but also the processes, materials supply, maintenance and manufacturing around any factory. Its fine to claim we still have enough staff in NZ to claim the added business benefits, (where we allow businesses to claim benefits with less review and checks then actual income benefits), yet making it out like it is equivalent to the workforce of hundreds more that could have been in NZ not only in the direct but also the indirect and supply side engineering roles is erroneous. For them claiming the manufacturing, QA & normal product management is R&D was pretty standard for F&P because what business does not want free money to them. They should never have been able to claim R&D for existing products and product lines.
Much like Weta claiming R&D for using existing tech and just writing more using the same platforms & claiming the QA testing, or Xero for pushing out the same tech that already existed without any R. Essentially every website or company could claim R&D if any software development was valid. Yet these systems do not have any R and are not innovative. It is the same webservices using the same frameworks with the same functions as before. Xero would be even more egregious if they took any of the cash because what they did was as close to out of the box from many apps as possible.
Sadly in many ways NZ has very little R&D actually happening in companies. The funds are used many as a slush fund for those with larger pockets. Internships happen regardless of slush funds; after all mech, electrical & chem mat engineers still need their hours and still manage to get them regardless of whether the companies draw on benefits & subsidies. We don't pay nurses for the hours they need for their qualifications, we don't pay teachers for the hours and days of work they provide for free. We also discriminate against other medical fields. So why are engineering students a special category that need benefits to get their training hours up, especially when the number of hours required is so so low. The answer is sadly rooted in the older gender bias against what was female dominated roles that just never got corrected to this day. It is an archaic hangover that was never fixed and many in male dominated fields receive more benefits on that basis even though we actually don't need that many students and don't keep over 60% of the engineering students in the field in NZ.
I dunno man seems like you've already reached your conclusions and there is way too much there to reasonably reply to.
I know a lot of people working at these companies and I don't think you have an entirely realistic picture of what it is that they do, or at least a very uncharitable outlook on them. F&P Healthcare in particular does a lot of good work in their field and brings significant export value to NZ, same with Weta & Xero.
Since I had an internal look into all three of those companies and a very in depth look at what they were using investment funds for it is really not entirely accurate to say I am an outsider. However from my time behind the curtain, so to speak, I honesty did not see a reason to stay with them and we have done well to avoid working for them in future. I think if I had spent more time with them I would be chewing my own hands off to escape. As in working for those companies more would have driven me to self harm to get out of the toxic environments. Friends who stayed did self harm or get burnt out.
Better to cut and run before things get to that point and watch out for red flags. In NZ we often share starting points but rarely do we share the same experiences of the culture especially if the culture is extremely harmful to many employees. In NZ in these companies they had major issues you could spot and then it would be very wise to transition to a better company culture with better remuneration.
Rocket Lab I have not had time with, it is more recent and they are more remote to us now. Love the idea and plan but I think they may be overall ill suited to NZs current approach to manufacturing and materials processing industries. In that we are shutting down most of them and cannot even guarantee reliable supply chains.
Incorrect, if they did it was falsely claimed as being R&D as most of those were not R&D product development. Xero, Weta especially should not have but even F&P healthcare was at the stage where there was very little science research and investigative development left. Hence many student projects under the R&D innovation tags focused around grunt work and QA. Rocket lab is an odd outlier as the practice of setting up manufacturing and sending rockets up into space requires more continuous R&D. As the machines, fuels and parts are constantly needing to be researched and redesigned.
None of those companies actually benefited on a new product/process basis from the R&D funding. But hey who does not like a free lunch and a practically free employee with government benefits for companies so easy to claim for.
Here is an idea, use an LLM to return paint colour swatch names by training on the resene & valspar colour palettes.
Trivial to do, code is already setup but the addition of LLM & AI means you can claim anything is research nowadays (alongside being able to claim anything using code).
The trick with these business benefits though was you needed big pockets to begin with. So those that need the benefits the least are the most likely to get them. Ironic eh.
Its pretty clear whats going to happen.
The Gluckman review will lead CRIs are being merged. Reduced headcount will occur has they merge finance, HR, legal, admin and communication departments.
It will then be sold as providing more money for science, by reducing the headcount of non-scientists.
A bit like the announcement of new officers.
Crown research sadly is normally what the main NZ industries benefit from so they should be funding it more directly as well.
It is all well and good to use the data but when it becomes essential to businesses as well we definitely need more direct industry investment esp on data collection (even if we open up the data for analysis the data collection is definitely required). There are ways we could enable it so there was elements of public access with reduced information but the bulk could require industry company subscriptions. We do this for a lot of geo mapping services in NZ and land & property data management. Would it be enough to pay for the whole org, probably not/far from. But if it helps fund and retain the data collection then all the other essential roles become less pressured. If we already have this in part then just increase fees or add more accessible services to widen the market you can attract significantly.
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