Science, Innovation, and Technology Minister Judith Collins Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
New Zealand's top scholars have come out swinging in a scathing open letter denouncing the changes to the Marsden Fund, and demanding Minister Judith Collins reverse them.
Last week, the Minister for Science, Innovation, and Technology announced the 30-year-old fund - set up for 'blue-skies' research - would no longer support social sciences and humanities, and 50 percent of the grants must show potential for economic benefit.
While the announcement has drawn praise from some quarters, such as the ACT Party and business lobby groups, it has also been harshly criticised by researchers across academic disciplines.
Now, 80 Rutherford Discovery Fellows have condemned the "damaging changes" to the Marsden Fund's terms of reference and want to see them reversed, immediately.
The researchers have outlined their key concerns in an open letter sent to the Minister and published online on Thursday.
Spokesperson Tim Angeli-Gordon - a previous Marsden Fund recipient and current Rutherford Fellow - said the changes to the fund was one of the worst decisions he'd encountered in his entire career, despite the fact that as a bioengineering researcher, he would technically benefit.
He said the changes amounted to political overreach that not only undermined the core intention of the fund, but it laid waste to the funding options available to humanities and social science researchers.
"The Marsden Fund has for a long time been the flagship fund for social science and humanities researchers, I think this is why this decision is so hurtful.
"On the ground, in the actual research landscape, doing day-to-day research trying to find funding - Marsden was one of the go-to options, and now it's gone.
"I find it immensely ironic that the Minister is basing this decision on its benefit to the economy, when the study of the economy is itself classed as a social science."
Angeli-Gordon said worrying change to the terms of reference was removing the line stating, the grants would not be 'subject to government's socio-economic priorities'.
He guessed most of the 80 Rutherford signatories had been recipients of Marsden grants, but many - including their name-sake, Ernest Rutherford - would likely fall foul of the new rules.
"His pioneering blue-skies work on the fundamental structure of atoms was unlikely to have been seen as having 'real impact' on our economy."
He said the fund was designed to support research for the sake of research - "the opposite of what the Minister is doing now" - and labelled the government's attempt to influence on end-research decisions, "political overrearch".
Minister Collins has said the overall funding was not changing, but the updates for would reallocate grants towards core science.
"In a fiscally constrained environment, it is crucial that we focus our funding on areas that can provide clear benefit to New Zealand."
She said blue-skies research would continue to be supported as only 50 percent of the funding had to show economic benefit.
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