New Zealand event hears that consultation fatigue is real but researchers must push their case
Scientists and researchers in New Zealand must continue to engage with government reviews and sell themselves to the public, sector leaders have said.
At a seminar run by the New Zealand Association of Scientists on 29 April, panel members acknowledged the fatigue caused by the new round of reviews following the cancellation of the Te Ara Paerangi Future Pathways science system reforms.
However, panellists said that some of the work done on Te Ara Paerangi is still relevant, although the financial situation is now tighter.
Willy-John Martin, director of Māori science at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, said that during the Te Ara Paerangi reform process, “it really dawned on me…how much the money side depends on how well we’re communicating the sector’s value to New Zealand”.
He said that scientists telling each other about the importance of their work was “unfortunately…not what convinces the rest of the country” or allows the cabinet to know the value of research spending.
There is a need to develop “brand research or brand science”. While researchers know their work is “hugely valuable, it’s just that out there we haven’t figured out a way to communicate that”, he said.
Martin said that one lesson from Te Ara Paerangi was that beyond Māori and Pasifika researchers, there was broad sector support to “do better” for those groups.
He added that precarity of employment continued to be an issue.
New reform process
The new government has established two review panels—the Science System Advisory Group and the University Advisory Group—both led by former chief science adviser Peter Gluckman.
It has also suspended the Quality Evaluation programme of the Performance-Based Research Fund, the country’s major research assessment exercise, pending the panels’ advice.
Gary Evans, a professor at Victoria University of Wellington who was chief science adviser at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment until 2023, told the gathering that funding levels had to be part of the new conversation.
“I honestly don’t see how you can put aside the funding aspect. R&D is an investment in our country,” he said. “You double the investment in R&D and [economic] growth also doubles.”
Ben Wylie-van Eerd of Callaghan Innovation said that “something I really want to keep in the spotlight in the new reforms is permanent jobs”.
He said that “unless there is that viable job at the end of the process, [researchers] are not going to be in New Zealand”.
“Some of the great research that we do here doesn’t find the business, economic or other support that it needs and it goes off overseas,” he said. Wylie-van Eerd was a candidate for the Opportunities Party in 2023.
Community needs
Panellist Sara Belcher, a Victoria University of Wellington science lecturer, said that while there appears to be a move towards “user pays” in universities, and towards funding from international student income, the research sector needs to communicate “what it does for the environment and the community and for Aotearoa New Zealand”.
“I think we need to have a research agenda driven by what the community wants…Then we will be decoupling the politics,” she said.
The Science System Advisory Goup is taking submissions until 17 May; the University Advisory Group is taking submissions until 31 May.