I recently came across a submission by Nicholas Wormald (who a long time ago worked in the building where I am now) to the 2005/6 National Strategic Review of Mathematical Sciences in Australia. Two things stood out for me: how similar Australian government ideas are to those in New Zealand, and how different they seem to be from those in Canada. The rejection rate for the only serious fund for “pure” research in NZ, the Marsden Fund, is about 93%, resulting in much cynicism and quite likely a Matthew effect (one of my pet hates – I would love to see evidence that giving so much more money to the already successful is somehow better for science overall). It seems clear that many proposals are rejected simply for lack of funding, not because of any problem with the proposal. The Canadian NSERC system appears much more enlightened: smaller grants, spread more widely, with less paperwork.
If it makes sense to do so, please sign the Marsden Fund Open Letter from the New Zealand Association of Scientists, requesting a tripling of the fund.
The Royal Society of New Zealand’s National Science Panel has released a manifesto urging government to revitalize NZ science. Let’s see what the response is – it has been hinted that substantial funding increases will be in the government’s budget released in May.