Science Media Centre

The Government is looking at merging Crown Research Institutes in a attempt to cut costs and increase efficiency. Writing for the Press, Vernon Small covered the response from scientists. An excerpt (read in full here): Scientists have attacked suggestions the eight Crown research institutes could be merged into as few as three super-CRIs as “a [...]

Two new, independent boards which will be responsible for science and innovation funding, have been set up and their members announced. They will be chaired by Dr William Rolleston and Professor Sir David Skegg, respectively. An excerpt: (read in full) Research, Science & Technology Minister Wayne Mapp says the boards will be key players in [...]

Brian Fallow writes in the New Zealand Herald about the suggestions of the 2025 Taskforce, one of which is there should be no further increases in the amount of public funding allocated to research and development. NZ already spends less as relative to the size of our economy than many other OECD countries, and the [...]

Michael Berry (and NZPA) writes in the Malborough Express about the $12million FoRST grant which will fund research into sauvignon blanc over the next 6 years. The research is looking into how to broaden the range of flavours in the wine, and lead to the ability to tailor wine tastes for different markets/countries. An excerpt: [...]

The Health Research Council (HRC) today announced an investment of $81.88 million into health research. The money, which will go to a number of New Zealand’s top groups and researchers, will fund a wide range of research: from looking at the safety and effectiveness of the wahakura (a woven flax basket used as a bassinet [...]

An editorial in the Otago Daily Times discusses why, in terms of last week’s budget announcement for research, science and technology funding, a few crumbs is better than none, and that the renewed focus on science and research is reassuring. However, it says the commitment is a limited one for a limited period, and government [...]

Earlier today, Prime Minister John Key announced that the government will be spending some $321 million on Research, Science and Technology, of which $225 million will be new funding. The funding will be spent on a range of initiatives, from actively encouraging commercialisation and technology transfer, to funding additional postdocs and attracting talented overseas scientists [...]

Organics Aotearoa New Zealand, which was founded as a service to those wanting to convert to organic methods of farming/growing, is waiting to hear whether its government funding will continue past the current funding phase, due to end in June next year. An excerpt: (read in full here) “The Governent also provided about $2 million [...]

The CRI Taskforce released its report to Government today, finding that CRIs were overly burdened by bureaucracy, a short-term focus and funding problems. The report said that no changes needed to be made to the number of CRIs, but instead to their service delivery. An excerpt: (read in full here) “Research, Science and Techonology Minister [...]

Chris Garner reports in the Waikato Times that Andy West, chief executive of AgResearch, is not surprised by the recent results of a poll showing that many agricultural and soil scientists are not happy. The high levels of job satisfaction, says Dr West, are not surprising due to the overly high levels of competition for [...]