Aotearoa NZ has for many years funded what’s known as “blue-sky” research via the Marsden Fund. This afternoon, social media platform BlueSky¹ is full of posts commenting on the NZ government’s decision to remove social sciences from the funding pool, and to require that 50% of funded projects be of “economic benefit” to the country.
The whole point of blue-sky research is that it’s “curiosity-driven”, or basic research, which may have outcomes that weren’t anticpated at the start of the work. Moving significant funding away from such research is ill-advised; notable advances in areas such as cardiovascular health, rapid DNA sequencing, mRNA vaccines, space and geophysical sciences, and an awful lot more, are derived from curiosity-driven endeavours. Focusing on the need for researchers to be able to demonstrate to the Marsden panel that their work is of economic value could well lead to a cautious, more-of-the-same approach, while reducing the odds of innovative research producing scientific breakthroughs.
And what of the social sciences? As Michael Plank commented (on BlueSky), “making progress on our biggest problems (climate change, infectious diseases, misinformation to name a few) will need more collaboration between STEM and humanities/social sciences, not less.” Understanding the social and economic impacts of a scientific discovery, or the downstream social & demographic impacts of climate change (as examples), requires the work of those very social scientists whose research will now go unfunded by this government. Not to mention the stand-alone social-science research that has real potential benefits for society, as Andy Reisinger notes (also on Bluesky): “The notion that fundamentally better understanding people and how and why they act doesn’t matter in achieving social or economic outcomes is, well, interesting.”
This decision seems extremely short-sighted, & risks further harm to the country’s research capabilities. We’ll be the poorer for it.
Expert reactions here, on the Science Media Centre page.
And from Bluesky:
This is so backward
1. Science is more than just commercialisable widgetry
2. Making progress on our biggest problems (climate change, infectious diseases, misinfo to name a few) will need more collaboration between STEM and hum/social sci not less.— Michael Plank (@michaelplanknz.bsky.social) December 4, 2024 at 3:46 PM
The notion that fundamentally better understanding people and how and why they act doesn’t matter in achieving social or economic outcomes is, well, interesting. “Humanities and social sciences panels disbanded and no longer supported.”
— Andy Reisinger (@andyreisinger.bsky.social) December 4, 2024 at 2:02 PM
Bring on more ignorance, says the govt.
This is NOT leadership, its an appallingly reckless, reactionary move intended to stifle the work of scholars who question how society functions, looking for ways to make it better. #nzpol
www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa…
— Dr Suze Wilson (@suzewilson.bsky.social) December 4, 2024 at 5:58 PM
¹ Twitter/X probably is too, but I don’t feel like visiting.