Science Media Centre

The Government has released this year’s Budget, with $250 million earmarked for science and innovation initiatives. This page will be updated with any new announcements and expert reaction. Finance Minister Steven Joyce delivered his first budget today: the National-led Government’s ninth budget. The Science and Innovation sector will receive $255.6 million of investments over the […]

Friday night’s Canon Media Awards could have been a glum affair, preoccupied with recriminations over the failed media mega merger that would have affected so many in the room. The audience response to hilarious emcee James McOnie’s digs at the media, showed that journalists are still able to laugh at themselves. The Canons did exactly what […]

Last November’s Kaikoura earthquake will likely change the way scientists think about earthquake hazards in plate boundary zones, according to the first study to come out of the data collected during and immediately after the earthquake. The study, led by GNS Science researchers, will be published on Friday in Science. A range of data – […]

University of Auckland’s Associate Professor Nicola Gaston writes on The Spinoff about why scientists need to stand against anti-science agendas and for the humanities. An excerpt (read in full): Very few of the Trump regime’s attacks on science have not been previously signalled – I spoke about one example, the proposal to prevent scientists from […]

Science was ignited as the fuel of economic growth, but the fame has gone out, writes Professor Jeff Tallon, physicist with The MacDiarmid Institute, in the NZ Herald. An excerpt (read in full): And it is inescapable, the Government needs to invest here much more heavily. We need to fund strategies, not projects. Where is […]

Our 2016 Science Journalism Fellow, Meena Amso, has landed on her feet following journalism school picking up a reporting role with Channel 39 TV station based in Queenstown. Amso was the Science Media Centre’s 2016 Fellow, which saw the Centre offer financial support to assist her in undertaking a post graduate diploma in journalism at the […]

Reporter Paul Gorman departs The Press after 14 years, including a stint spent getting to grips with earthquake science. Paul takes up a position as senior communications advisor at the University of Otago at the end of January, moving south to Dunedin to immerse himself in research – and assist scientists communicate it. Over the […]

With the summer season kicking off, it’s not all BBQs and beaches: many scientists are heading south for the Antarctic research season. As Kiwi scientists head to the ice, they’ve featured in New Zealand media – especially given astronaut Buzz Aldrin’s emergency evacuation from the South Pole to Christchurch, where he is recuperating from symptoms […]

UPDATED: A snapshot of New Zealand’s science and innovation system has laid out where we are doing well and where there is room for improvement compared to other small advanced economies. The Science and Innovation System Performance Report was published yesterday by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and is intended to benchmark performance […]

New Zealand has some fine science and environment reporters reporting for print, television and radio. Based all over the country, from Auckland to Wellington to Christchurch, they help to ensure that New Zealanders are kept up to date with science and environment issues both here and abroad. The Science Media Centre approached some of them, […]