Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins says far-reaching changes to the Marsden Fund and the Catalyst Fund aim to provide more economic impact for New Zealand.
New terms of reference for the Marsden Fund will outline that around half of funds will go towards supporting proposals with economic benefits for New Zealand, according to Collins.
“The Government has been clear in its mandate to rebuild our economy. We are focused on a system that supports growth, and a science sector that drives high-tech, high-productivity, high-value businesses and jobs,” Collins said in the announcement.
“I have updated the Marsden Fund Investment Plan and Terms of Reference to ensure that future funding is going to science that helps to meet this goal," Collins added.
The Marsden Fund will no longer support the humanities and social sciences, with the panels for these to be disbanded.
"Real impact on our economy will come from areas such as physics, chemistry, maths, engineering and biomedical sciences," Collins said.
Likewise, the Catalyst Fund which aims for international collaboration for science has been updated, Collins said, "to be laser focused on clear outcomes and priority research areas."
These are quantum technology, health, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, space and Antarctic research.
"All proposals must demonstrate high-impact research of relevance and importance to New Zealand. This will guide our investment in emerging international science opportunities, to ensure it delivers impact for New Zealand," the Minister said.
The reaction to the changes from scientists was less than favourable. University of Otago Associate Professor Louise Bicknell, who researchers rare disorder genetics, said:
This is horrific news for Marsden grants ....https://t.co/B9lRkVDkwU
— Louise Bicknell (@bicknell_l) December 4, 2024
Troy Baisden, the co-president along with Lucy Stewart of the New Zealand Association of Scientists, sent a statement, reproduced in full below:
"As we await more detailed information, the New Zealand Association of Scientists deplores key aspects of the today’s announcements that the Marsden Fund will eliminate its Social Sciences and Humanities Panel, and introduce measures requiring funded research to be of economic benefit.
For those who understand national research systems, receiving this announcement is chilling. That’s especially true because the government has been unable to progress the long-awaited reports on reform of the research system.
More than any other panels, those eliminated investigate and help us understand who we are as nation. Why would we not care to support that?
It may be a surprise that so many scientists cannot support this type change. The research funded by Marsden is best referred to as fundamental, and deserves support on that basis.
So this isn’t more money for science.
While the same area of research can be both fundamental and applied, forcing economic benefits into the Marsden fund doesn’t get us a 2-for-1.
Instead, it is likely to erode the excellence, quality and efficiency of both. Excellence in fundamental research forms the foundation for knowledge that supports our society, and the quest for understanding that drives high quality teaching in universities and supports a wide range of applied research.
I’ve always felt that the tendency to refer to the foundations of knowledge as ‘blue-skies’ research invites the mistake in funding that we’re seeing today.
The research areas defunded are important and were also among the most attractive areas for emerging researchers starting their careers.
These cuts double down on the end of National Science Challenges where social science was one of the cost-effective bright spots that emerged.
In effect, it appears that we’re defunding our ability to understand and address some of our most important challenges.
Climate change is an area where we know half the challenge is social science and that humanities can be vastly important to support public understanding and communication.
The same applies to hazards and many other areas where social science is essential in making science both useable and used - to save lives.
Similar changes have been made to the Catalyst Fund, and reflect a similar short sightedness.
International collaboration is most effective around fundamental research in areas of mutual excellence and interest. Attempting to extract economic outcomes undermines the quality of collaborations as well as their long-term benefits.
With ongoing cuts, we must be sadly asking, what funding is left for these areas and where do we expect our excellent researchers and collaborators to go?
What does it signal about research careers or that the research system supports New Zealand’s unique needs?"
The Association has already criticised the Government for not funding science in its first budget.
It appears, however, that not all research projects must show immediate economic benefit.
“The Marsden Fund will continue to support blue-skies research, the type that advances new ideas and encourages innovation and creativity and where the benefit may not be immediately apparent. It is important that we support new ideas which lead to developing new technologies and products, boosting economic growth, and enhancing New Zealand’s quality of life,” Collins said.
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Some examples of previous Marsden Fund projects:
- $360,000 to study Big Things such as the Ohakune Carrot, with a focus on “a critical gaze to the privileging of Pākehā-centred narratives in current research on roadside “Big Things” and “Weaving together feminist, participatory, and filmic geographies, this project seeks to re-centre alternative stories currently hidden in the Big Things’ shadows“
- $360,000 to collect disabled indigenous stories about climate change with “establishing how such stories resist ableist narratives and theorise and advance disability-centred ways of creating sustainable and just environmental futures.“
- $861,000 to explore dark nudges and sludge on social media in relation to advertising alcohol.
- $861,000 to help decolonise ocean worlds from imperial borders
- $861,000 to link celestial spheres to end-of-life experiences to “create opportunities to rekindle the ancient connection to the stars and re-imagine the meaning of death, while also advancing understandings about the practical application of Māori astronomy in contemporary times.“
- $360k into the popularity of true crime podcasts
- $360k for Co-designing and Decolonising Gender Education
- $360k on people’s experiences of employer provided housing
- $360k for de-sexualisation of te reo Māori domains
- $860k for The Diverse Roles of Indigenous Women in Food Systems
- $660k for Mapping Buddhist Law in Asia
- $660k for design and content of picture books reflecting indigenous language, culture and evolving national identities
(from kiwiblog.co.nz)
For those folk who think the above list couldn't possibly be true, reality is indeed stranger than fiction, and while I've not been aware of those "scientific" research projects funded by Marsden Fund, I have seen a number of other projects that are just as inane.
All this change has done is to stop the grift of woke identitarian nut-jobs by re-focusing the Marsden Fund back onto STEM subjects - its original funding purpose - after having been perverted by Grant Robertson when he was Finance Minister.
This change by Judith Collins is very welcome indeed.
And of course, the economics discipline itself is a social science. And then there is social media; mental health; addiction; housing; infrastructure project management; cost-benefit analysis; governance; social development; social investment; crime;... I could go on and on with subjects studied within the social sciences.
What we need is research on how to achieve more/better societal outcomes with more efficient and effective interventions. This notion of growth (I assume measured in GDP) being the only objective is so missing the point. The question should be, how do we cope with de-growth and how do we condition and prepare our society for it.
However: epistemological determinism does invalidate something trying to be a science, and the social sciences are rife with it.
It causes things like: ignoring confounding variables, creating designs that can't be falsified, confusing cause with conjunction, treating data in ways that make grown statisticians shudder.
I write as a former inmate of the social sciences.
Thanks for that link. Some of the projects sound quite interesting. I thought that the one that had
'Merging ancient Roman knowledge and Te Ao Māori to create self-healing and sustainable concrete using natural materials'
was a bit of a stretch. However, archaeologists have found out the recipe for the type of Roman concrete that became stronger the more it is exposed to the sea which could be very useful for building concrete barriers and above flood platforms in some of the islands.
I understand that instead of mixing lime cement and gravel then adding water the Romans boiled the mixture then poured it. This created small pieces of mineral within the concrete that hardened over time instead of degrading.
If we could build some of our structures out of Roman concrete then they might last 2000 years instead of 50.
The core work on that has already been done by a group at MIT a couple of years back, to the point there are now "how to" guides on Youtube!
Quite what the local input would add feels a bit redundant.
Maori didn't even have the wheel let alone concrete agnostium. So why would their ways be joined to anything to do with Roman concrete? The study is laughable and should be mocked. The Government have done exactly the right thing. Cleansed the idiots that authorised the grants for this sort of nonsense.
The Examples of Marsden funding is pretty funny.
But seriously, they should be made to pay it back.
Who the heck approved funding this crap?
Could you imagine trying to keep a straight face during the interview. Wouldn’t have been easy, but hey, that extension on the house isn’t going to pay for itself.
LOL.
You have no idea how much our honey industry is worth, do you?
Might I suggest if it had been a project to spy on dairy cow movements you'd have nothing to say? Or would you still want to make a fool of yourself?
In case you didn't know ... There have been studies on dairy cow movements!
And the findings resulted in increased milk output ... probably in the 100s of millions of dollars over the years since they've been done.
If you are indeed a 'structural engineer' then I'd not be using your services. You have a closed mind.
Bee keepers already have some idea where it is best to locate a hive. But they're unsure as to why. Numerous theories exist and some of these theories work in some instances but not others. Why is that? Golly - maybe we should do some scientific study on it? Geez - it worked for cows!
24-UOA-072
Centring Pacific girl gamers' voices in understanding how gaming contributes to their wellbeing, identity and relationships
Virtual Voyagers: Amplifying Pacific Girl Gamer voices.
Dr JMU Allen - The University of Auckland $360,000
The world of online gaming is booming, with an estimated 3.2 billion gamers across the globe. Despite girl gamers making up around half of these, gaming culture remains associated with masculinity, heterosexuality, and whiteness. Furthermore, research on girl gamers continues to be limited. This study aims to fill that gap by examining Pacific gamer girl experiences that not only focus on negative aspects, but also on the way their gaming interactions positively contribute to their identities and relationships. By doing so, we can better understand how this industry contributes to the mental health and wellbeing of Pacific people.
The uptake of games by 'girls' is lower than for 'boys'. Why is that?
Who'd want to know why?
Might I suggest NZ's significant number of software companies that make games might?
Geez ... Maybe a huge untapped market? Maybe even more foreign currency coming our way from a huge global market?
What did I do to upset you? Does your employer provide EAP services?
Some from the latest round. Hundreds of thousands of dollars to each "professor" who can come up with the most hypomanic schizotypal study topic.
24-UOA-042SOC - What is a 'surplus' zoo animal and what should happen to them? - Dr AP Palmer - The University of Auckland - $360,000
24-PAF-020CMP - How do plants hear the contrasting vibrations of a bee buzzing and a caterpillar chewing? Dr Samarth - University of Canterbury - $360,000
24-UOA-053EEB - Do mantis shrimps use one or two eyes to strike prey and predators accurately? Dr M Vorobyev - The University of Auckland - $941,000
The last two might come in very handy, thinking about it. If we don't know how mantis shrimp actually target their prey so accurately, that could actually lead to something about vision which may advance the science and have useful real world applications (drones/military tech etc). Similar to how trees hear, can we enhance plant growth or change plant behaviour via sounds?
These things sound outlandish, but could actually lead to economically valuable outcomes. We will never know however if we don't look.
I'll repost from 4pm.
More good news & a long overdue reset. Any doubts just look at the funding decisions taxpayers money has been wasted on over recent years.
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2024/11/marsden_fund_goes_even_more_woke.html
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2024/11/more_on_marsden_funding.html
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2024/08/the_latest_marsden_fund_spending.html
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2024/09/how_the_royal_society_abandoned_scie…
Bollocks.
You should be ashamed of yourself.
This - along with the axing of the CSA to the PM - is chosen ignorance - done by those who clearly have a head start in that arena.
We are a species hitting up against the Limits to Growth. Our impacts are global, as you'd expect; climate being one of several Planetary Boundaries we're transgressing. But instead of doing something with science to get us back within those Boundaries, she's advocating more of what put us into overshoot.
Madness. When did we lose the plot and think money - keystroke-issued debt-proxy, nothing more - was more important than out relationships with each other and the biosphere? And why do some insist on it, even when they've been given enough evidence?
I'm confused, wouldn't this change mean:
1) more money goes towards understanding the limits of growth
2) how to adapt to and prevent climate change
3) more efficient management of scarce resources
That's science and economics. I have seen you for years link absolutely every topic under the sun back to this one key limits of growth problem which is a problem that can be summarised as "energy in + stores of energy vs energy expended = danger if energy expended is too great", a.k.a a problem that only science can solve - and yet now you want money that could be used to solve this instead fund the humanities? Musn't be an issue then I guess?
One of the smarter observations - nice one.
Yes, the irony was not missed, here's mine this evening, 4pm thread.
'The joke - the big one, there are several - is that the sciences she advocates, physics, math etc., could tell her that the economic growth she advocates, is in the rearview mirror. Besides that the pursuit of it was causing the 6th Mass Extinction, a warming planet (a reduced human carrying capacity) and is drawing down all planetary resources at orders of magnitude more than maintainable rates.'
The expertise will be channeled, you bet your ass. No looking into Limits, look at her list of topics. Antarctica is the outlier - one wonders why? It alone, has the capability to tell the truth. AI? Space? FFS...
Try thinking in terms of knowledge - society-wide.
We are heading for de-growth, like it or not. Simple science tells us this. That in turn, says we need to know as much as we can, about as much as we can. It also tells us that 'making money' (call it economic growth, as Collins does) is an invalid societal goal.
So
Either we negotiate de-growth as smoothly as possible - researching options, ramifications and impacts - or we react to mother nature slash physics forcing it upon us. It seems we have chosen the latter. I'd like to think we could anticipate post-growth living arrangements (many more involved in food-production, many less involved in discretionary activities) and how that would look? For instance, I'm pretty sure that central governance as we've had for a century, will be unmaintainable (not enough surplus energy - and I reckon the recent PS culling is the beginnings of that). So local leadership, then. But how will they do the soil and freshwater monitoring, needed to keep 'local' food production going? That's not even on the radar - because de-growth is not on the radar.
Lots to research - but there are an echelon who were narrowly-educated, in a time when the dominant religion was economics. They see only short-term monetary gain, and their mental balance-sheets fail to include stuff which just happens to be life-supportingly crucial. That, I'd like researched. Sure, much added knowledge is blind-alley stuff, but you don't know until you know.
Great question, and the kind of debate we need.
I've long lamented the siloing in universities:
https://www.interest.co.nz/public-policy/122917/murray-grimwood-looks-i…
No.
Building of tract, energy-requiring, useless-beyond fossil input housing, is slightly higher up the list. As is discretionary car-use. As is unmaintainable-beyond fossil feedstock anything.
Knowledge is one of the things we can indulge in, indefinitely, to no disadvantage. One can never be too informed, nor can society-at-large.
The fudge here, though, is that knowledge has been commodified in the relentless drive for GROWTH. Funding it is not a prerequisite. But - that said - prioritising it compared to the raft of discretionary activities we all indulge in (mea culpa too) is not bad thing.
It's not knowledge that's being cut, it the staggering amount of money put into frankly virtually useless knowledge, you know, the money that is "keystroked into existence but not backed up by limited physical resources" money. Except the money they have been given is of course being used to turn these finite resources into pollution.
Thing is, it's not just science and economics. Knowing what needs to happen to prevent climate change is only half the battle. Getting people to actually do what needs to be done is a psychology (and possibly marketing) problem. More efficient management of scarce resources is not just an economics problem - it's also a politics and philosophy problem because distribution of limited resources is a question of justice as well.
As above - Collins is well known for having attack-dog(s); Slater being the obvious. The moral fortitude either side of that, is obvious to anyone who has their own moral code - any level thereof would be enough...
This was planned.
The joke is that the target - economic growth - is receding at increasing pace.
"No one blinks" about the flag debate referendum that we hear endlessly about over and over again as if Key should have just changed the flag by decree instead of letting the public vote on it, or the ten-times that amount that was spent on 0.0km of light rail in a city crying out for rapid transit networks?
Oh so your for the people now GV ? Make up your mind you cant have it both ways?
Well, its official. The word has come down from on high. According to the Beehive, cabinet ministers don’t need evidence-based insights into the needs and experiences of New Zealanders, or the lives of human beings in general.
They already have perfect knowledge of these matters.
The sheer improbability of this is breathtaking. It is also a breach of the coalition agreements. There, the Government promised that its decision-making would be principled, accountable, democratic, people-focused and evidence-based.
The humanities include English, literature, languages, linguistics, religion, philosophy, classics, cultural studies, media studies, art history, film, history and law.
Many New Zealanders will have studied these subjects, and many of their children will wish to do the same. (Well not anymore as they will head overseas)
Yes, I am aware of what the humanities are.
Yes, I think they should be funded.
No, I am not sure they should be funded through this particular mechanism.
How much STEM does Creative NZ fund?
E: Perhaps a future Marsden fund project could be "why are some people so up in arms about the humanities not being able to access every single research funding stream in the country like some sort of divine right?"
Yep, Absolutely wonderful rebuttal from Dame Anne Salmond.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/12/05/anne-salmond-govt-de-funding-the-mind/
Rebuttal? Nonsense. Just another Salmond piece haranguing a Government she does not like. Here’s some news. If the Marsden Fund had not deigned to fund drivel humanities research, it would still be funding humanities research. Blame the woke morons making the funding decisions.
So driving even more of our bright and talented young people out of the country to get their social science/humanities tertiary education overseas and gutting the economy of the country even more so is the right response to those 'woke morons' who up until now made Marsden Funding decisions? There's future prospective students to think about both domestic and international. There is the loss of staff and their families plus University rankings which surely will fall. Have you supported a young person through tertiary education in the last ten years? It's always been an expensive exercise but has become hugely so ..... and especially for families who live outside the University cities. If our students are to become international students themselves, amongst other consequences, I expect those costs to increase ......
Furthermore I found this utterance unbelievable - "We are focused on a system that supports growth, and a science sector that drives high-tech, high-productivity, high-value businesses and jobs,” Ms Collins says." Growth yes (because National still supports growth), but high value business and/or quality jobs!!!! - No. When has New Zealand not pursued a low wage economy? To my mind, her words here simply do not align with the changes she is making.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/535870/funding-research-for-econom…
Wasn’t changing the flag long held Labour policy, but they childishly opposed it because they didn’t want to let John Key get a win on something so historic?
Secondly, I’m not sure it’s the best example to indicate government waste. There was plenty of public debate and everyone got a say. It was democracy in action and $25m seems like peanuts given Government departments in recent years have spent 2-5x that on projects that had no tangible outcome at all. I would argue that the public ought to be consulted in a similar way on more issues more often.
The problem is the Marsden fund doesn't get the great proposals, great proposals can usually get funding from private and international funds, without all the bureaucratic hassle.
The Marden fund has been criticised in the past for not applying enough rigor to evaluating proposals - in some cases the level of expertise is limited, in other cases its can be (perceived or otherwise) career limiting to apply rigorous evaluation to certain topics.
No rigour. It's a ballot, An innovative approach to research funding | The New Zealand Initiative
Great question.
The Left - and a goodly part of the Green - echelon, probably vaguely realises the existential overshoot issue. I suspect it is virtue-signalling (making strident noises about redressing the last single overtaking - while avoiding the fact that we are all a result of countless such overtakings, and that we are trashing the chances of how many potential futute generations?).
The Right, more self-centred and short-term, needs not to know it is drawing down that which it needs.
So both have a vested interest in avoiding unpleasant-reality science - the Left assuaging the need-for-knowledge by urging inconsequential research, the Right by just allowing research which facilitates the short-term here-and-now. Neither want to hear what Mike Joy is saying, for instance - so we get the Waimate situation.
A ballot: what a wonderful way to avoid responsibility if something goes South.
Bear in mind this is the same Royal Society who excoriated the academics who pointed out that mātauranga Māori is not science and has recently decided to reduce it's board size and remove Maori representation.
Maybe someone is noticing how things have been done.
"“The Government has been clear in its mandate to rebuild our economy. We are focused on a system that supports growth, and a science sector that drives high-tech, high-productivity, high-value businesses and jobs,” Collins said in the announcement."
Please explain how all those roads are going help achieve "high-tech, high-productivity, high-value businesses". Last time I checked, such businesses need high-skilled people who can live in quality housing well connected to amenities through cheap, quick, efficient public transport. Or at least that the model that works best everywhere else in the world.
Can we have a government that talks sense next election please! (And spare me the what-about-ism retorts from the blue-dyed foolish and faithful.)
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