RNZ today has aired concerns about the impact of Budget 2025 on the funding of scientific research as part of a major restructuring of science sector.
The report noted a trimming of the Marsden Fund.
The Budget allocated just over $813 million for business, science and innovation. Almost 577m was dedicated to rebates for international filmmakers, leaving about $236m for science and innovation.
RNZ reported:
The budget funded major science reform through the reallocation of money from funds dedicated to research and innovation, with much of the $212m repurposed for new government initiatives.
The Science Minister said the reprioritisation of funds would help unleash the long-term potential of the new science system.
However, administrators of the blue-skies research Marsden Fund are worried cuts will curb innovation and evidence-based solutions at a time when they are needed most.
The chair of the Marsden Fund Council, Professor Gill Dobbie, said Budget 2025 resulted in a $5m funding cut over three years.
The 30-year-old fund, established to support excellent fundamental and blue-skies research, was allocated just under $79m in the 2025/2026 financial year.
The Science Minister’s office confirmed that funding for Marsden would be cut in stages over the next couple of years, with a new baseline funding of $71m from 2028/29.
For the 2025 funding round, the Marsden Fund Council anticipated just over 100 projects – from a total of 978 proposals – would receive grants from about $80m in available funding.
The Marsden Fund Council will review the amount committed through existing research contracts and then determine the number of new grants that can be awarded.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment (MBIE) has cancelled the 2026 funding round for its contestable Endeavour Fund to focus on the merger of Crown Research Institutes into new mega science entities.
The $55m Endeavour Fund supported research via Smart Ideas – designed to be fast-fail – and longer-term research programmes of up to five years.
Late last year, the government announced significant changes to the Terms of Reference for the Marsden Fund. It would –
- exclude the social sciences and humanities from eligibility
- elevate impact to a primary objective for the Fund rather than a secondary consideration after quality of research and advancement of knowledge
- eliminate social and cultural impact as considerations
- require 50% of funded projects to demonstrate economic impact.
In a post-budget statement, the fund’s administer, the Royal Society of New Zealand, said the budget cuts came at a time when New Zealand needed “innovation, critical thinking, and evidence-based solutions more than ever” and followed the changes to the Marsden Fund last year which resulted in an increased focus on research with the potential for economic benefit.
Source: RNZ
