This article focuses on the critical issues that must be addressed in order for research and development (R&D) to deliver positively for New Zealand’s people, environment and economy. These issues include the total investment in R&D, levels of funding for basic, applied and other forms of research, the intrusion of ideology within research, and the diminution of excellence as a condition of funding. In addition, they include the re-design of New Zealand’s funding instruments and the need to ensure excellent quality in all research, particularly in research that may influence policy.
As the year 2025 approaches, New Zealanders should ask what they want from R&D over the next twenty years. In return for taxpayer investment, should we expect increased emphasis on delivery of economic benefit and less on expansion of non-rival, non-excludable public-good research and expansion of the frontiers of knowledge? In what proportions should the country invest in these and other desired outcomes? If we want economic, health-related and environmental benefits, then in what proportions do we invest in these desired outcomes?
Today, the world faces genuine challenges, including the degradading of our environment, threats to biosecurity, pandemics, and unequal distribution of wealth, both within and across nations. To drive innovation and accelerate the desired shift towards a knowledge-based, diversified economy that can meet these and other challenges, we must resource the best researchers, adhere to established definitions of research, and ensure that allocation of funding is proportioned appropriately across the different areas from fundamental curiosity-driven research, through mission-led, to near-to-market and commercialisation of technology. In addition, excellence must be a non-negotiable condition of all funding, along with considered judgements on the potential of proposed research to deliver benefit.
Taking advantage of opportunities in the evolving global research landscape requires knowledge of emerging challenges and of the necessary research and development to address those challenges. Such knowledge requires an education system that is outward-looking and prepares students to be internationally engaged. In addition, we need research skills and sufficient cohorts of trained people and, of course, science careers that are attractive to students who are entering university with a view to becoming professional researchers.
Looking Back 20 Years
We have seen many news media articles over the past 20 years in which academics have pointed out the steady decline in education which set in after the Todd Report of 1994 (Ministerial Consultative Group Report, May 1994). The Todd Report came out after changes to the market model for universities in 1990, and made various recommendations on tertiary education fees, including higher fees and the requirement for students to meet 50% of course costs. The Todd Report led to an escalation in student fees, partly because of the view that degrees provide both a public and private good.
Shortly after the year 2000, New Zealand experienced the introduction of unit standards in the polytechnics, and the introduction of the NCEA in 2003 - 2004 within secondary education. Unfortunately, these changes meant that students received disconnected ‘units’ of learning rather than integrated bodies of knowledge in core subjects such as mathematics. Such changes reflected the incursion of postmodernism into education from the 1980s, but the effects were not felt in universities until the early 2000s. Our universities did not suffer in quality of education until somewhat after 2000, even though pressures were mounting steadily once students became “clients”. Now is a good time to reflect on what has happened since.
In recent years, Government funding to universities per student capita has remained at about 60% of that of Australia. Universities now need a major funding boost, but this outcome is unlikely. Thus, is some form of rationalisation called for? How many Chemistry departments, for example, does the country need? There is a widespread view among university staff and other researchers that the decline in quality of education at all levels since the Todd Report is matched by a similar decline within New Zealand’s research sector.
Taking a longer perspective back to the 1970s, there seems to have been a significant boost in the quality of much university research, but the ill-posed PBRF requirements have meant that overall quality has declined, diluted by people in every department, not only the sciences, trying to boost their scores.
Investing in Research and Development
Twenty years ago, many of the issues facing research, science and technology were much the same as those of today. In particular, we remained behind other nations in our investment in R&D.
Today, though New Zealand’s investment in R&D has increased from 1.17% of GDP in 2005 to 1.47% in 2021 (Wikipedia, 2024), but with a tiny upward change of about 0.1% since 2011, our level of investment remains well behind that of many other developed nations. Of course some of the increase is due to R&D tax write-offs that are counted as part of national R&D investment.
In 2021, while New Zealand invested 1.47%, the OECD average was 3.01%, the average for low and middle income nations was 1.64%, the average for high-income nations was 2.94% and the average for the European Union was 2.28%. Australia invested about 1.85% and Israel invested some 5.21% - the highest in the world (Wikipedia, 2024).
Thus, New Zealand’s percentage R&D investment declined, rather than improved, from 51.8% in 2005 to 49% in 2021. This decline has taken place despite key recommendations for increased investment in Government-commissioned reports such the 2011 Powering Innovation Review (Raine, Teicher and O’Reilly, 2011). Many studies demonstrate a clear association between R&D spend and GDP per capita (productivity) growth. This association is discussed in the Powering Innovation Review Report.
New Zealand’s small economy is characterised by low economies of scale and the well-known “tyranny of distance” from our overseas markets to which we transport mainly low value-added, low R&D-intensive products such as sheep carcasses and lightly-processed logs for construction. There is a strong case to increase New Zealand’s level of R&D investment in order to accelerate our already successful and growing high technology industry sector, and expand exports that have high dollar value per tonne of shipped weight. This particular case had been articulated back in the time of the National Research Advisory Committee in the 1970s, and even earlier.
Based on a study of specific cases, twenty years ago the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology (MoRST) noted that considerable benefits accrued to New Zealand from past environmental research (MoRST, 2004). New Zealand may well benefit from a further review of our industry sectors and an evaluation of their potential to add value through increased investment in R&D.
Of course, increasing New Zealand’s R&D spend will not necessarily result in immediate improvement in our economy, and one impediment to such an improvement is the limited absorptive capacity of some sectors to adopt and apply research. The main factors here concern the lack of trained people to apply the research and the financial capability to utilise the outputs. For example, at present we have a long-term under-supply of engineering and computer science/IT graduates, amounting to several hundred every year. Currently, this problem acts as a brake on our ability to accelerate industrial growth. However, the strong association between levels of investment in R&D and economic performance do suggest that New Zealand should increase its investment.
The lack of absorptive capacity in some sectors has long been an issue and, in an evaluation of the Environmental Output class, MoRST noted that many end-users do not have sufficient scientific capability to use the science as it was currently presented (MoRST, 2004). Greater short-term staff mobility between universities, Crown Research Institutes, and industries would help to alleviate this problem.
Back in the Year 2005
It is instructive to recall the status of R&D twenty years ago on the basis that New Zealand can learn from past successes and failures. Back in 2005, probably the most critical brake on gains from public R&D was the low total level of R&D investment relative to those of other OECD nations. This situation has not improved. Other issues identified then by researchers included inefficient management of resources, leading to excessive transaction costs on research institutions through proliferation of funding instruments - along with expensive bidding processes and reporting requirements, and excessive use of contestability. These areas have not improved either.
For research groups that had to source money from multiple funding schemes, the time and effort involved in developing proposals represented a very significant loss, particularly for those that were ultimately unsuccessful. At that time no other nation disbursed such a large fraction of its R&D investment on a contestable basis.
Back then, science managers and leaders identified other problems, including over-prescription of research and inadequate funding for excellence-based, curiosity-driven research. They also identified a lack of clear strategic planning and transparent funding policy around key research areas, thus reducing the ability of research organisations to plan for the future and fund equipment adequately.
In addition they highlighted downgrading of research excellence as a funding criterion in some parts of the public good funding system, potentially leading to a decrease in the average quality of New Zealand’s research effort. Regrettably, issues relating to definitions of research excellence and their application persist to this day.
Recommendations from the New Zealand Association of Scientists in 2005
In 2005 the New Zealand Association of Scientists (NZAS) recommended the following initiatives in order to enhance both the productivity of New Zealand’s science system and the morale of the research community (Campbell, Lillis and Grieve, 2005):
1. Increase R&D public funding by at least 25% to match the OECD benchmark average percentage of GDP, and thereafter maintain or increase this quantum in line with the increasing targets of leading OECD nations.
2. Reduce the current proliferation of funding instruments and merge the functions of related instruments so as to reduce transaction costs to researchers, particularly in respect of bidding processes.
3. Develop clear guidelines concerning the expectations of managers of public-funded institutions in the R&D system, because conflicting objectives and incentives exert a negative impact on the functioning and effectiveness of the whole system. (For example, we have institutions competing, when really, for a small country like New Zealand, when there are only resources to support one institution with adequate infrastructure and access to modern equipment.)
4. Examine the continuing relevance of the roles of various R&D institutions. (Analysis of many systemic problems suggests that they mainly result from a lack of clarity around the roles of different research institutions, what government expects of them, and related decisions on funding methods.)
5. Develop funding policy in a more transparent manner and signal future funding scenarios more clearly than at present.
6. Reconsider how Crown Research Institutes should be funded (including funding independent of universities), especially where it is important to Government that institutional memory be retained.
7. Increase resources to excellence-based research, such as is presently funded within the Marsden Fund, by as much as 200%, in order to allow our most creative and productive researchers and research leaders greater latitude to undertake original research in fields of their choice and in which they have demonstrated their ability to uncover new knowledge.
8. Reinstate research excellence as an important funding criterion in the Public Good Science Fund and similar funds.
At that time it was a widely held view within the research community that New Zealand’s investment in R&D was inadequate for achieving the intended outcomes. Subsequently, the 2011 Powering Innovation Review report recommended progressively lifting R&D investment to match the OECD average within 10 years. In addition, this report recommended using increased investment to encourage private sector investment and address the country’s long-term investment in R&D.
Of course, the Budget process makes arguments that are based on OECD percentage benchmarks contentious and, taking that logic to the extreme, a natural corollary would be to allocate Budgets on the basis of OECD percentages across the board - for education and defence etc - none of which we recommend here. In fact, MoRST was successful in securing disproportionate shares of Budget discretionary spending for R&D for several years in succession during the early 2000s.
Now, in 2025, many of the NZAS recommendations remain relevant, and it is particularly sobering that diminution of research excellence as a criterion of funding continues to be a pressing issue for our research sector. Of course, much depends on how research excellence is defined. The appeal to excellence involving strong peer recognition in narrow research areas can be a very self-serving criterion and one that absolves researchers and research organisations from responsibility to explain wider value.
The research funding system has also become unfit for purpose. We see excessive overlap between different funding instruments, top-heavy administration and too many inexperienced people involved in oversight of the funding processes. The National Science Challenges (MBIE, 2024a) were a very costly exercise, characterised by expensive boards and high administrative costs, and they replicated research already being done. In addition, we saw excessive capture by academics who already received funding for their project areas.
High administration costs are what we get when we devolve under public-sector requirements for accountability. Perhaps what we saw was not replication so much as alignment with the National Science Challenges in anticipation of extra funding.
Making the Right Appointments
It is critical that we appoint appropriately and highly skilled people to academic positions, and especially to positions of leadership. In recent times there have been numerous problematic appointments of people who have limited subject matter expertise. Who will train our students in the sciences if newly appointed academics do not have a grasp of the fundamentals of their disciplines? Various academics inform us that this issue is very serious at both New Zealand and Australian universities.
One New Zealand very senior academic says:
“Gone are the days when you taught students chemical reaction kinetics, which is full of differential equations. I’m not even talking about statistical thermodynamics here. The outfall of all of this can already be seen by the appointments to journal editorial boards where editors do not understand the science behind a submitted paper. Even worse, they cannot find referees any more who are willing to referee the hard stuff. The rot set in with the implementation of student fees. However, in Germany there are no student fees, but the change from the diploma to the M.Sc meant cutting all courses and lab time.”
The same academic says that many managers at his university have no background in research and that the university seems to be “dragging people in off the street and putting them into decision-making roles where they obstruct scientists’ work and push people out of employment.”
Unfortunately, the same problem exists in our public service where we have seen completely unqualified and inexperienced people leading and managing highly qualified teams of researchers, and sometimes performance managing brutally those same experts out of work (Lillis, 2022a and 2022b).
Social Justice Agendas
The original, basic principle of Vision Matauranga was laudable - that taxpayer funding should deliver benefits to one particular ethnic and cultural community that was very under-represented in scientific research. However, other communities are under-represented too – especially our Pacific people, though both Māori and Pacific people are represented in our university faculties at about the level expected on the basis of Ph.D completions (Lillis, 2023). In any case, we have seen the concept of Vision Matauranga migrate steadily towards the requirement for direct involvement from Māori in all research, and great difficulty for advanced science projects to succeed in the funding process; for example, theoretical physics, solid state or nuclear physics, where Vision Matauranga has no relevance. New Zealand’s small science budget must be used as effectively as possible for science, but not for any social justice or political agenda.
Recently, a team engaging in microbiology and biochemistry research received curious feedback from MBIE on its Endeavour Fund bid. They were told that, while the project had strong involvement with Māori commercial interests, the project team itself did not include any Māori researchers. The way other MBIE grants have handled this particular problem was to include untrained and unqualified people, as in the Ngāti Kuri/Auckland Museum project (MBIE, 2024b), in which interested but unqualified people were included on trips to the Kermadecs in order to “learn”.
Professor Julie Rowland (currently Deputy Dean Science) has been appointed Pro Vice-Chancellor Global and Graduate Research at the University of Auckland. She writes:
“If Māori values are parked outside state education, who is education for, and on what terms? Clearly, this scenario disregards every aspect of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and wider indigenous rights.” (Rowland, 2022)
She believes that braiding mātauranga Māori and science poses no threat to learning and research and instead enriches both practices in many ways. Our reaction is that nobody is arguing for complete separation of any form of traditional world view from education but that we must not conflate any one world view or “other way of knowing” with modern global science. Teaching about traditional world views is to be encouraged, but we must teach about all of the world views that characterize New Zealanders and maintain a clear separation from science.
Further, she writes:
“Universities are the last in the education line to grapple with the duality that comes with meeting Treaty obligations. There is widespread support for this among academics who see the relevance in multiple ways. Our universities are not at a crossroads choosing the path of the universality of science or a race-based ideology. We are on a dual carriageway and the momentum is building.”
What exactly are these Treaty obligations that have to do with education and does this “dual carriageway” include the world views of populations in New Zealand other than Māori and European? Where is the evidence for widespread support beyond very small sample surveys whose respondents quite possibly are self-selecting? On what basis should New Zealand universities violate political neutrality by choosing to be led by any historic document and placing one traditional world view as central to its operations?
Unfortunately, the appointment of various Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advocates to leadership roles at our universities makes the battle for free speech and academic freedom much harder. In addition, the insistence on Vision Matauranga everywhere limits our science effort, and it should be entirely optional except on specific Matauranga Māori projects or those linking directly to Māori cultural, economic or property interests.
Unfortunately, decolonisation activism causes little other than damage to research and we must maintain greater awareness of the opportunity cost that decolonisation poses to universities. Generally, decolonisation is framed within the context of inclusivity and becoming Te Tiriti-led, but the adverse effects on curriculum content, accreditation, professional outcomes, and principles of university secularity and political neutrality, are overlooked or ignored.
"The more scientists depart from the scientific method in their attempts to assume the roles of political or religious leaders, revolutionaries, arbiters and dictators of morality, the less people will trust us and our institutions. The path to reclaiming public trust begins with a commitment to political neutrality and disengagement from all forms of institutional activism and social engineering ambitions. This includes attempts at rationing the fruits of scholarly labors according to ideological criteria." (Socialimpurity, 2024).
A university system captured by Critical Social Justice ideology and decolonisation activism will lose international standing and will not attract top talent from overseas. It would be productive for New Zealand if we could arrive at a healthy combination of social justice and economic enhancement. For its part, Government needs to understand where critical research needs exist, and invest to achieve the benefits that basic science provides through Intellectual Property and attracting the best scientists to New Zealand.
Science and Non-Science
Today, one of our most pressing problems is non-science posing as science. In New Zealand we have activism and ideology posing as science and a proliferation of publications that are characterised by motivated reasoning, especially in education and health. Here is an overseas example of what can happen if definitions of research and excellence in research are relaxed. The abstract states:
“The article aims to transform narratives surrounding Utah’s Great Salt Lake, often referred to as “America’s Dead Sea,” by reimagining how brine shrimp (Artemia franciscana) are perceived in science, culture, and art. It introduces the concept of hydrosexuality to bridge these realms, thereby enriching feminist blue posthumanities and feminist biology through art-based practices and queer advocacy. By navigating the environmental narrative of the GSL, the hydrosexual perspective
challenges settler science by exploring the connections between the reproductive system of brine shrimp and the economy, ecology and culture. The article provides a framework for integrative cultural analysis that bolsters arguments about the multilayered exploitation of the lake and amplifies voices that recognise the brine shrimp as vital to the survival of multiple species and to the GSL as a unique ecosystem. Furthermore, this cultural analysis draws inspiration from low trophic
theory and Queer Death Studies. This multifaceted approach is exemplified by two case studies in the arts, which gradually alter white humans’ perceptions and understandings of the brine shrimp, helping to reimagine the GSL in the context of rapid climate change.” (Jarosz, 2024)
Such work may indeed engender fresh ways of perceiving our natural environment and the life within it, and may also explore and bring to light the world views of minority groups. The work seems to comprise an unorthodox mix of genuine research, ideology, the arts and a degree of wishful thinking. Even if the research has merit in some domain, it cannot be seen as credible science in the way that marine or biological science research must be.
In New Zealand we will arrive at a very dangerous place if research of the kind described above attracts funding that should go instead to research that delivers a public good such as environmental remediation, brings an economic return to the taxpayer or, if not promising of immediate benefit, is in any case excellent. Unfortunately, some of the research funded in New Zealand today is of highly questionable quality and of equally questionable benefit to our society. Further damage stands to be done if we fail to challenge material that conflates research with political or ideological activism, especially if such work is adopted within policy.
Emerging International Trends
The future of mankind depends critically on globally-focused, first-class education and world-class science. New Zealand depends on these activities too. Thus, we must resource all areas of basic and applied science, and especially those areas that will underpin our efforts to meet existing and emerging challenges. Productive and excellent science requires a quality of education from which graduates are capable of critical thought and have the ability to distinguish good science from pseudo-science. Such science investment must go hand-in-hand with investment in technology and innovation.
To plan for the future we must be aware of current trends internationally. Between 2014 and 2018 global spending on research and development grew faster than the global economy, as nations sought to invest in order to accelerate environmental and electronic transitions and to meet economic, public health and other objectives. Global science spending increased by 19% during those years, and the number of scientists increased by 13.7% to approximately 8.8 million (Science Business, 2021). New Zealand must align with international trends (e.g. faster growth in global research and innovation spending than growth in GDP) and, as noted already, commit to matching OECD norms for investment as a percentage of GDP.
In developing research expertise for the next two decades, New Zealand should maintain niche research expertise areas in environmental and ecological research, agriculture and forestry research, fisheries research, medical research, medical technology, and software more generally. We should continue to focus on these areas because New Zealand cannot be competitive in every area. However, we must enable degree programmes and research in many domains in order to capitalise on opportunities in new and emerging areas, as exemplified by companies such as Rocket Lab and Halter, for example.
Continuous monitoring of emerging issues and international research is strictly necessary if we are to invest wisely. There is a clear need for international collaboration in order to address global challenges, and New Zealand’s research policies must be globally referenced rather than inward-focused. Many universities now function as multi-national commercial enterprises, having campuses across one or more other countries. Moreover, because public research faces several major challenges that are accentuated by the increasing costs of scientific equipment and infrastructure, and pressures on national budgets, international research partnerships can be used to access high cost research infrastructure.
Redesigning the Funding System
The entire research funding system is due for redesign at this point, including a reassessment of national priority needs. There has been significant replication between National Science Challenge projects and MBIE Endeavour Programme projects, where some academics have obtained funding from both sources in parallel on the same or similar work, and additionally in some cases with CoRE funding and or Marsden funding.
It is accepted that receiving funds from multiple sources for the same work can be productive. If a research team has many good ideas in a particular area, they may need funds to pursue them in parallel. The parallel funding streams come under the same general heading and may be similar in a mutually reinforcing sense.
The Government-commissioned report on R&D Investment to the Minister of Science and Technology in 2004 (Science Enterprises Group, 2004) identified five areas across which investment was needed. These areas could be described differently, but were stated thus:
· Discovery
Alignment of investment priorities with the quest for knowledge for its own sake, serendipitous discovery, and contributions to the positioning and reputation of science in New Zealand.
· Creative Insights
Collaborative processes with other policy agencies, community groups and science enterprises to develop future insight and aspirations; and (primary role) investment in science that helps prepare for plausible futures for New Zealand.
· Strategic R&D for Existing Sectors
Investment that integrates research with the strategic objectives and initiatives of user groups.
· Tactical R&D for Existing Sectors
Purchase of research-based services that provide information and consultancy advice.
· Technology Commercialisation
Pre-seed and seed investment proposal evaluation, due diligence assessments of technology mobilisers, and investment portfolio management.
The proportions of investment across fundamental discovery research, mission-led research aimed at economic benefit, and funding for science and technology transfer to industry must be cognizant of historical allocations but ensure that they meet the country’s current needs.
Prioritisation of research and research investment should occur at Government level, in consultation with discipline area expertise. High intellectual risk, high innovation-intensive research applications will best be identified by industry and end-users. Researchers and funders will play a significant but secondary part here. The balance of research investments across the humanities, social sciences, health sciences, life sciences, physical sciences and earth sciences should take account of potential to add value through innovation and take account of the size of particular sectors and their importance to New Zealand in contribution to GDP and other societal measures.
Funding to different Research Output Classes (or their equivalents) should be contestable, as it has been in the past. After that, funding within Classes should be allocated on the basis of excellence and potential to deliver benefit.
Making strategic choices on future priorities across different fields is a challenge for both research organisations and Government. Balancing distribution of resources between various fields of science, between long-term and short-term needs, between big science and single investigator-led projects, between infrastructure and personnel, and between national and international needs, present other challenges that New Zealand must meet. In any case, however funding policies may be redesigned, it is critically important that as much funding as possible goes directly to research, rather than to meet overheads or to increase the number of administrators.
Of course, it is entirely reasonable to include some overhead, as always there are infrastructure and services costs relating to hosting research projects. The White House A21 Rules (Office of Management and Budget, 1994) assessment of overhead cost which is supposed to be repeated by universities every couple of years, have resulted in research grant labour overhead rates between about 105% and 130% across the different universities. This situation may be acceptable (industries typically charge approximately 150% labour overhead), although in some cases there is an argument for reducing to around 50%, as is the case for one or two of the USA research funds.
Evaluation of Research
During the 1990s, New Zealand had a credible research evaluation system, located within the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology (Lillis, 2000), but since then much of our evaluation capability has been lost. Effective and efficient science demands robust research evaluation for judging research, both retrospectively and prospectively. In evaluating research, we must consider:
· the opinions of peers
· the importance of the research to policy, to the people, to the environment or to the economy
· the educational and human capital benefits to researchers and students from participation in the research
· the potential impact of the research in stimulating further research
· judgements on future benefits and outcomes.
However, we must recognise the value of “blue skies” research that may not provide immediate material gain, but which is conducted by the most outstanding researchers, that develops research capability, especially among students, and that delivers potential long term public good and economic benefit. Blue skies research should be evaluated as parts of wider portfolios of research. Here we wish to know the extent to which it contributes to capability outcomes and end outcomes.
In addition to retrospective and prospective evaluation of individual programmes, we need rolling cycles of Output Class evaluations, much as MoRST conducted in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Perhaps we should consider the reciprocal obligation of the R&D system to demonstrate in a continuing, research-based fashion, the value accruing from publicly funded R&D. This area remains a gap that is even worse now because of MBIE failures.
The Next 20 Years
Our desired future, at least over the next 20 years, must include fundamental science, innovation and technology that delivers benefits across all sectors and domains, and creates human capital. It must compete with the rest of the world in niche areas but encourage research in diverse areas, and be credible and respected in other countries. Its priority-setting should be based on up-to-date intelligence on the research needs of all sectors, including health, the economy, the environment, biosecurity, education, manufacturing and other industry, transportation, agriculture and forestry, sustainable fisheries and Artificial Intelligence.
Challenges such as pandemics, climate change, loss of biodiversity, oceanic and atmospheric health and malnutrition are global, and will be addressed through mainstream fundamental science and technology. Traditional knowledge will focus on the culture and wellbeing of the earliest people to settle in New Zealand, as well as that of other communities. Repair of the world’s environments and mitigation of impacts of climate change will occur mainly through green science and green technology that include atmospheric and marine biology, chemistry and physics; hydrology; research into cleaner agriculture and forestry and sustainable fisheries, and research into cleaner and sustainable energy, transport and manufacturing.
Besides excellent research, we must focus on ensuring pathways whereby research and technology can be adopted and applied. We must adhere strictly to agreed definitions of research and research excellence, consistent with internationally-accepted definitions, and not diminish excellence in order to include traditional knowledge or “other ways of knowing”. The question that remains is how we design a system that will achieve all of these things.
Research organisations must harmonise more effectively with tertiary education than at present, including non-university research providers directly (especially in student research), and we could provide incentives for graduates to make the transition to research and development careers more straightforward. New Zealand could well benefit from the Danish model, involving a strong central technology institute that triangulates projects with academia and industry, but also where Crown and private research organisations are collocated with universities, as in the German Fraunhofer Institute model.
New Zealand needs greater short-term mobility of staff between universities, research organisations and industry. At all times our universities must maintain their distinctive roles as providers of high-level teaching and high-level research, as opposed to provision of vocational programmes – essentially the present role of our polytechnics and wananga.
Our universities must once again become enablers of constructive criticism and dissent, providing an “extraordinary environment of freedom of enquiry” as articulated in the Kalven Report (Kalven et al., 1967) and embracing of diverse and contrary views. Bullying and harassment of academic staff must have no place and staff should be free to contribute to and contest the strategic directions and trajectories of the university (see Raine and Lillis, 2024).
Appointments to university faculty must be made on merit in relation to teaching and research but not on adherence to one or other ideology or political affiliation or indeed, on the basis of biological sex or ethnic background. Students must be admitted on demonstrated potential for success in advanced study and New Zealand must refocus on the academic quality of its students rather than on numbers of enrolled students.
The universities require a substantial increase in public funding and wiser decision-making in relation to expenditure of scarce financial resources than has occurred over the last decade. On the other hand, the excessive bloat of non-academic activity (e.g. Johnston and Kierstead, 2024) must also give way in order to resource the main roles of the university which are to provide teaching and research. The ratio of non-academic staff to academic staff (the direct revenue generators) should reduce from the current ratio of about 1.5:1 to a more efficient 1:1.
One possible design includes a fund, such as Marsden, covering fundamental research; another for mission-led and more applied research, and research translation, commercialization and knowledge transfer as a third. A fourth fund could comprise whatever replaces the PBRF, but focused on the development of capability, recalling that PBRF money was originally research postgraduate student funding from Government. A fifth fund might comprise traditional knowledge research, recognising that in a zero sum game, each fund will subtract from the others. Its criteria for access would undoubtedly be different from those of other funds.
Government’s primary role is as enabler of an environment in which research and development can thrive. In this role, Government must monitor the status of the research, science and innovation workforce on a continuous basis and address issues such as those involving capability and shortfalls in particular areas.
Epilogue
This article has examined the needs of New Zealand’s science research system in the future. We must reshape our research funding system, lift our investment to OECD average levels, and reinforce our focus on excellent and effective research.
Of course, these are ‘what’ requirements. They are easy to list and have appeared in dozens of reports and papers over the past 50 years. The real issue is one of design - how to design and operate a system that meets the requirements of the future. The fact that the requirements have not been met as yet and that many of the identified gaps and problems have persisted for decades, should tell us that we do not yet have adequate conceptual frameworks for thinking about New Zealand’s science and innovation system. We must develop the required frameworks if, over the next 20 years, New Zealand is to emerge as a prosperous, 21st century, multicultural nation with a bright future.
Dr David Lillis is a retired researcher, statistician and academic manager who also worked in research evaluation for the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology.
John Raine is an Emeritus Professor of Engineering and held Deputy and Pro Vice Chancellor roles in three New Zealand Universities.
References
Campbell, Hamish; Lillis, David and Grieve, Janet (2005). There is a better way: Eight recommendations on the science system in New Zealand: A discussion document prepared by the New Zealand Association of Scientists, May 2005. New Zealand Science Review Vol 62 (3) 2005
https://ojs.victoria.ac.nz/nzsr/article/view/8913
Jarosz, Ewelina (2024). Loving the Brine Shrimp: Exploring Queer Feminist Blue Posthumanities to Reimagine the ‘America’s Dead Sea’
Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics (2025) 38:1
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-024-09934-0
Johnston and Kierstead (2024). Media Release: New research reveals the start of excessive non-academic staffing in New Zealand Universities
Kalven et al. (1967). Kalven Committee Report on the University’s Role in Political and Social Action, University of Chicago, 11th November 1967. Report on the University's Role in Political and Social Action (Kalven) (uchicago.edu)
Lillis, David (2000). Towards a new science evaluation system for New Zealand
Research Evaluation, Volume 9, Issue 2, August 2000, Pages 145–150, https://doi.org/10.3152/147154400781777287
Lillis, David (2022a). Workplace Bullying in New Zealand
https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2022/01/david-lillis-workplace-bullying-in-new.html
Lillis, David (2022b).Sorry - but “nga Mihi” isn’t good enough!
https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2022/07/dr-david-lillis-sorry-but-nga-mihi-isnt.html
Lillis, David (2023). Allegations of Racism in New Zealand Universities
https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2023/03/dr-david-lillis-allegations-of-racism.html
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2 comments:
A very insightful article with noble (and necessary) recommendations but with little chance of achieving the desired goals.This country is beset by woke academics and woke , ignorant and spineless politicians captured by Maori wonderfulness who have little understanding of science or history.
Colonisation brought civilisation (with all its benefits) to these savage shores. Decolonisation will eventually have the reverse effect - a return to savagery and brutality!
At risk of pointing out the obvious, this concept of ‘decolonisation’ is a nonsense. No one, not even the most radical of radicals will be willing to give up all the trappings and wealth of the current age, to return to something akin to the times and standards of a pre-Bronze age. So let’s recognise such terms as all they are - a wish for power and control by a minority element of our society. Firm resolve and resistance is absolutely essential. If we are confused and weak, the disrespect we would reflect onto the efforts of previous generations would, in my view, be unforgivable.
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