Marsden Fund cuts one way to secure ‘convenient’ evidence

This week Science Minister Judith Collins took seemingly everyone in the research sector by surprise, announcing that social sciences and humanities research would be cut from the Marsden Fund, the only public source of ‘blue skies’ or researcher-driven funding in New Zealand.

Details are scarce, amounting to a single press release announcing that Government was refocusing the Marsden Fund “on core scientific research that helps lift our economic growth and contributes to science with a purpose”.

Two moves were signalled: changing the terms of reference to mandate that 50 percent of funds go to supporting “proposals with economic benefits to New Zealand”, and to cut funding to social sciences and humanities altogether.

These changes are alarming on several levels. I could make an impassioned plea for thinking there’s something intrinsically important about the humanities and social sciences – fields often referred to as the ‘heart’ and ‘conscience’ of society. I could despair about what this means for the research sector’s ability to see value in attracting and retaining talented social scientists and humanities scholars. Yet, I’ll leave that to others.

What springs to mind most readily are the implications for independent thought and critique in New Zealand.

In advanced, complex societies like ours, evidence about human systems and activities – historical, statistical, experimental and otherwise – is crucial for understanding ourselves, our impacts, and making informed decisions.

For government, evidence falls into two categories: convenient and inconvenient.

Despite the shock my colleagues have felt about Collins’ announcement, there will continue to be ways for social science to be publicly funded in New Zealand (humanities, less so). There are sources of ‘mission-led’ funding open to social scientists, where government chooses directly which projects it funds based on its own priorities.

By their nature, these mission-led projects produce evidence that is convenient to government. It asked for it, after all.

What cutting social sciences and humanities from the Marsden Fund dramatically reduces is the ability of researchers to produce inconvenient evidence.

When Keith Joesph, the UK’s Secretary of Education, wanted to scrap the Social Science Research Council in 1980s, his motive was clear enough, reportedly saying: “I’ll start funding your research when you give me the findings I want to hear.”

In a place like New Zealand, reducing the ability of social scientists and humanities scholars to pursue projects and generate evidence independent of government agendas is arguably more concerning than it would be in other nations.

New Zealand has one of the most centralised systems of government in the wealthy world, one with comparatively little restraint on the executive. This alone should give us pause, but it’s made worse by an extremely thin ecosystem of think-tanks and other non-governmental policy institutions, which promote independent ideas and debate.

Owing mostly to philanthropic funding – which has its own problems – other wealthy nations have a more robust collection of non-governmental organisations whose job is producing research and opinion, and enabling dialogue, that stands independent of government.

This isn’t the case here. Non-governmental research organisations are heavily dependent on government contracts. The business-oriented New Zealand Initiative think-tank stands as an exception to the rule.

Even the Royal Society Te Apārangi, a peak body for New Zealand researchers, is deeply compromised in criticising this Government’s recent announcement. It too is dependent on government contracts. A large proportion of its budget comes from its contract with Judith Collins’ very own ministry to manage and disperse, ironically, the Marsden Fund. Its ability to provide frank policy advice now sits in fraught tension with its need to stay in the good graces of its most important client – government.

Last month, $14.7m was allocated to social science and humanities projects in the 2024 Marsden Fund round, about one-fifth of the total funds awarded.

In the context of total public research funding, redirecting this money to physical science will hardly register. In the context of the Government’s balance sheet, it’s a rounding error.

But in a nation where the ecosystem of independent evidence and critique is already thin, the Government’s recent announcement is most convenient.