David Farrar: How the Royal Society abandoned science funding

The Marsden Fund is funded by taxpayers and administered by the Royal Society.

It is meant to be for research in science, engineering and maths, social sciences and the humanities. It says it is regarded as the hallmark of excellence for research in New Zealand.

Their grants are online since 2008, so in my spare time I have been analysing them, and dividing them into four rough categories.

• Science
• Humanities/Social Science
• Maori/Colonialism
• Identity (gender/ethnic/refugee focus etc)
• Policy/Political

Here’s how the proportions have changed over time.

So almost 90% of the funding used to go to what you might call hard sciences, and it has now fallen to under three quarters. At the current rate, science will get less than half the funding within a couple of decades.

Maybe the Government should take away 75% of the Marsden Fund from the Royal Society and give it to a new science body, and leave them to distribute the remaining 25% to whatever their current fashion dictates.

David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.