Bob Edlin: What research will be starved by lopping of the Marsden Fund?

Oh, dear – see what sorts of research will be starved by another lopping of the Marsden Fund

RNZ reported yesterday that “a decades-old fund dedicated to blue-skies research says it was given a day’s notice of further funding cuts and told to keep quiet about it until the government made it public”.

The team at PoO imagines it was not the fund, but the administrators of the fund, who were given a day’s notice.

Professor Jerry Coyne: Another desperate but failed attempt to show that indigenous “science” improves modern science

This article at The Conversation, by a climatologist at the University of Wellington and a lecturer in design (?) at the University of Auckland, is a desperate attempt to buttress Māori “ways of knowing” by showing how they align with modern science conducted in Antarctica. It is purely performative, meant to sacralize Māori “science,” but in fact adds nothing to modern science. Its only aim is to show that if you twist Māori lore sufficiently, and squint hard enough, you can sort of see some similarities with modern science.

David Farrar: The Marsden Fund changes will boost university rankings

The Herald has another story with the usual suspects complaining that Judith Collins cut off the woke research gravy train by requiring funding to go on actual scientific research rather than how to create a Treaty of Waitangi compliant tax system.

The legacy media have run probably ten times as many stories attacking the changes and labelling them controversial, as they did highlighting some of the projects that were previously funded that was nothing more than woke activism seeking funds.

Guest Post: PhDs

A guest post by a reader on Kiwiblog:

The taxpayer subsidised study for 7355 PhD students in 2023. These are both foreign and domestic students. Because the foreign students pay domestic fees, NZ is considered a cost-effective place to do a PhD.

Breaking down those 7355 (data from the TEC website):

Bob Edlin: Dark times for independent thought?....

Dark times for independent thought? Or has someone seen the light in deciding how scarce research funds are best spent?

Tom Baker, an associate professor in Human Geography at the University of Auckland (and a researcher who has benefited from the fund at the centre of his article), is perturbed by Science Minister Judith Collins’ decision to cut social sciences and humanities research from the Marsden Fund.

David Farrar: Marsden Fund dewoked

Judith Collins announced:

The new Investment Plan focuses on supporting research that can be of economic, environmental or health benefit to New Zealand. The new Terms of Reference outline that approximately 50 per cent of funds will go towards supporting proposals with economic benefits to New Zealand.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive 3/12/24

Get out your microscopes – Collins says the Marsden Fund will focus on something called “science”

David Farrar has been railing in recent weeks against the Royal Society of New Zealand’s management of the Marsden Fund – or is it mismanagement?

The society’s demotion of “science” in its priorities when deciding who should benefit from the fund gave rise to these headlines on Kiwiblog:

David Farrar: Marsden Fund goes even more woke

In September I looked at the proportion of Marsden Fund grants that go towards actual science over time. The summary was:

David Farrar: Rogernomics not deemed interesting

An interesting comment on my Royal Society funding piece:

There is no biography of Sir Roger Douglas. As a Senior Lecturer in History, I asked the Marsden Fund to support my biography of Douglas. They ranked my application 62 out of 62, dismissing it with the shallow comment, “The topic of Rogernomics is not all that exciting.” -  This is political bigotry. It shows the poor quality of the Royal Society’s thinking, which has since been exposed on other topics.

Bob Edlin: MM on your CV - Royal Society of NZ

Prospects of becoming a CRSNZ (an honour in Royal Society circles) might be enhanced by mentioning MM on your CV

Hard on the heels of our learning how the Royal Society of New Zealand has been doling out research money from the Marsden Fund, our attention has been drawn to the significance of matauranga Maori (or MM) in the latest election of society companions.

The Marsden cache – funded by taxpayers and administered by the Royal Society – is earmarked for research in science, engineering and maths, social sciences and the humanities. The society says it is regarded as the hallmark of excellence for research in New Zealand.

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.

David Farrar: So called science funding

The Marsden Fund used to be a prestigious fund that attracted the highest quality science research projects. But alas since Grant Robertson expanded its focus to the social sciences, we now get the following funded by taxpayers through the Royal Society:

Jordan Williams: More ridiculous wastage of taxpayer money

Last week I wrote about some of the ridiculous wastage of taxpayer money by the Health Research Council. We received an absolute barrage of emails in response – with 99% having the same reaction as us: things need to change in Wellington.

I promised you there'd be more to come, and today we're turning our attention to another of the great research quangos that our research team has been looking into: the Marsden Fund, which is managed by the Royal Society of New Zealand.

What's the Royal Society and its Marsden Fund all about?

Point of Order: Marsden Fund boosts Mātauranga Māori projects

But how many researchers will survive the money malaise at Massey?

Massey University chiefs obviously were chuffed that seven Massey research projects – two Fast-Start grants for new and emerging researchers, and five Standard grants – secured a total of $4,948,000 from the Marsden Fund Awards 2023.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 8/11/23

Marsden Fund grant goes to Vision Mātauranga project – but what about the place of Māori knowledge in school science?

On yet another day without fresh news on the government’s official website, Point of Order has opted to muse on the future of matauranga Māori in the science curriculum in schools and in the country’s science institutions.

We are not alone. The latest batch of Marsden Fund grants includes $360,000 for a project summed up as:

Bruce Moon: Satire - A great opportunity to do some real science!!

Thoughtful readers will be delighted, I am sure, to know that after many months of arduous preparation, I am about to submit to the Marsden Fund my application for $720,000 for a study entitled “The Social, Environmental and Sexual Impact of the Unicorn in the Southern Hemisphere.” This will be, I am sure, groundbreaking research in a wholly new field and I am confident that its impact will be dramatic. Moreover, I am excited to announce that I have the full backing of Father Christmas who is considering unicorns as successors to his ageing team of reindeer.

There will inevitably be those dismal characters, as in any field of human endeavour, who suggest that that is a considerable sum and who ask why I consider it appropriate. My answer is of course, that grants from the Marsden are subject to the highest scrutiny and applications subjected to intense competition from those so-called scientists who, reactionary though it may be, continue to follow the decadent, racist, colonialist practices of so-called “Western” science.

Point of Order: More work on moa

Marsden Fund grants $870,000 for research into an extinct bird and Maori food gathering

More millions have been dished out by Ministers in the past 24 hours and/or we have been shown what has happened to funding previously distributed.

In the second category, the PM has officially opening a surf live saving centre in Tauranga. We can see what we got for our money.

In the first category, on the other hand, is the latest approval of grants from the Marsden Fund.

Ron Smith: Pornography and the public interest

Media stories during the last week, about proposed Auckland University research into the place of pornography in society, raise much wider issues than the deliberate deception involved in the Marsden Fund reporting of this issue. Apart from the obvious questions about the importance of this particular investigation and others in the recently issued Marsden list, there is a general question about the desirability of awarding more than fifty million dollars to public institutions (largely universities), that are already in receipt of public funds, and about how the decisions to allocate these funds are made.

Clearly, there are areas of research where specialised equipment and technical expertise that are not already available may be required before investigations can be made, but this does not seem to apply in many of the cases, including the case in point: ‘Public engagement towards a more inclusive and equitable society’, which is the code for the proposed pornography investigation. It seems perfectly appropriate for social scientists in one of our universities to research the place of pornography in our society, without the need of an anodyne title. What is not clear is why staff employed full-time at a university, who anyway have an obligation to spend a significant proportion of their time in research, should be awarded $790,000 to do it. Of course, in general terms, we do know what Marsden money is awarded for in this sort of case. It is to free a particular researcher (or researchers) by employing someone else to do their teaching, and/or, to appoint others persons to contribute to the research. In the specific case, it seems that an ‘interactive website’ and an ‘art exhibition’ are also envisaged.