Posts of Sneh Patel RSSThu, 17 Mar 2022 01:42:53 GMTKia ora! I've just gone through and added a list of new terms and abbreviations to the glossary section. Most of these are taken from the joint New Zealand Association of Scientists / Te Pūnaha Matatini effort on submissions to the Te Ara Paerangi green paper, but please go through and add anything we have missed...(or let us know if you have any additions/suggestions on the definitions). Ngā mihi!

]]>Thu, 17 Mar 2022 01:42:53 GMTAotearoa New Zealand’s high research overheads are internationally anomalous, and are over 100% of directly accounted for research costs such as salary, consumables and operating expenses. This means that the majority of taxpayer-derived funding provided by the Government to public institutions is difficult or impossible to properly account for. They also serve as a constant source of tension and confusion for all international migration and collaboration in the research sector.Link to full brief and citeable content: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6360794Reference:Baisden, Troy, & Patel, Sneh. (2022). New Zealand's High Research Overheads: An International Anomaly. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6360794Hashtags:#Overheads#Workforce#SubmissionSharing#CC0#NZAS

]]>Wed, 16 Mar 2022 00:12:10 GMTVannevar Bush founded the successful post-war mission of the United States National Science Foundation on five fundamental principles.1 These included protection of basic research, and the institutions housing it, from direct control of the funder or immediate demands such as the race to applications Bush himself had overseen as director of the Manhattan Project. A relationship of trust grew by housing the entire funding apparatus within the US democratic system. The intent extended to post-war New Zealand, but was embodied imperfectly in the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), which was not independent of government. The Marsden Fund provides a more fitting implementation, beloved by the scientific community, but beset by the challenges of hypercompetition. The concept of Bush’s compact between ‘Science and Society’ seems to be largely forgotten within the New Zealand Science Community. Reforging the fundamental basis for trust and stability in a nation’s political economy of science funding has required reconsideration since the end of the Cold War. In the 1990s, recognition grew  that applied and fundamental science were complementary rather than competing endeavours.2 Grand challenges in climate change and the environment began to be invoked.3,4 More recently, recognition of the importance that gender, ethnic, and geographic diversity provide a better mirror between science and society has been echoed by the clear need to include social science in solving any large problem.5In today’s New Zealand, the institutional hypercompetition for contestable research funds leaves little room for trust. An open debate about how to reforge trust and reciprocity deserves deep consideration. Concerns about ‘Silencing Science’ voiced by Hendy6 remain unsolved, and lost in a noisy new balkanisation that has emerged over whether science can embrace mātauranga and indigenous knowledge. A commission or body capable of developing the philosophy an... Read more

]]>Tue, 15 Mar 2022 03:50:14 GMTThis is a fact sheet reporting bullet pointed findings that extend a previous working paper. Additional tables from the StatsNZ R&D Survey were obtained from StatsNZ Infoshare to produce these results. Current and future gains from increased Business R&D may be limited by a large and growing gap between employment of PhD-qualified researchers in Business R&D. Positions for 4300 PhD-qualified researchers would be needed to bring the Business R&D sector to one PhD FTE per $0.5 m R&D expenditure, currently. At this ratio, twice this estimate (8600 FTE) will be required for R&D to reach 2% of GDP. Full brief and citeable content: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6354873 Reference: Baisden, W Troy. (2022). 8. Training-Workforce Mismatch for New Zealand Doctorates. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6354873 Hashtags: #NZAS #CC0 #SubmissionSharing #Workforce

]]>Tue, 15 Mar 2022 03:46:32 GMTIn response to the Te Ara Paerangi Future Pathways Green Paper Consultation, this paper reviews the case that the current funding environment is hypercompetitive, with negative implications on research and the well-being and diversity of the research workforce. Evidence for hypercompetition includes impacts on the workforce such as accumulating precarity across PhD student and post-doctoral funding, poor diversity outcomes that resist policies aimed at improvement, and funding rates in the 10% range for contestable proposal systems. It may be important to avoid positive feedback causing the rich-get-richer Matthew effect, such as avoiding overlap between funding mechanisms that can amplify a cycle of more researchers applying to contestable funding, undermining the potential to increase funding in response to low funding rates. Recommended solutions include well designed base funding, fellowships, reform of competitive funding mechanisms, and smaller funding packages, along with direct collaborative or international exchanges. Ensuring more effective and equitable future research funding through more anticipatory science policy may be achieved by improved monitoring focusing on the success, connectivity and responsiveness of independent research organisation and the early career tracks of researchers. Link to full brief and citeable content: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6354888 Reference: Patel, Sneh, Baisden, Troy, Stewart, Lucy, & Yee, Grace. (2022). 5. Hypercompetition: Observations and Remedies. Zenodo. Hashtags#NZAS #SubmissionSharing #CC0 #Hypercompetition

]]>Tue, 15 Mar 2022 03:42:42 GMTAnalysis preceding and developed for Aotearoa New Zealand’s Te Ara Paerangi Future Pathways Green Paper Consultation can be combined with a systems perspective to suggest Aotearoa’s Research, Science and Innovation (RSI) system does not prioritise or respond as well as it should, and lacks coordinated strategies to address major issues. How can we assess concerns that potentially successful ideas and innovation are being stopped unnecessarily at systemic barriers, which could be removed in the current push for systemic reform? Ostrom’s eight principles for managing common pool resources provide a well-designed framework that can overcome the high level barriers, which may arise from hypercompetition and other dilemmas born out of the institutional structures and funding systems. There are at least three good options for implementing Ostrom’s principles in high level institutional and funding structures. These provide enabling conditions for ensuring that efforts to address workforce career issues, funding stability, and improved funding mechanisms lead to a more effective and responsive RSI system. A more compelling basis for enhanced funding levels, trust and self-organising prioritisation can come from: 1) a well-implemented base funding system, 2) implementation of Ostrom’s principles and values-driven approaches to rebuild trust, and 3) fellowships support that addresses the stress, connectivity and responsiveness issues currently observed. Link to full brief and citeable content: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6354852ReferenceBaisden, W Troy. (2022). 4. Building Responsive Science and Innovation. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6354852Hash Tags#CC0#SubmissionSnippet#Responsiveness#Prioritisation#NZAS... Read more

]]>Tue, 15 Mar 2022 03:32:50 GMTPrevious briefs addressing Te Ara Paerangi Future Pathways Green Paper evolve from awareness that the pandemic has raised serious concerns about the sustainability of today’s research institutions and funding systems. Aotearoa’s highly contestable funding raises concerns that our system may be among the most unstable internationally and prone to the problems observed in increasingly hypercompetitive research systems worldwide. Hypercompetition is associated with poor behaviours and mediocrity, undermines diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), and reduces the likelihood of funding innovative projects and careers. How can we build more collaborative, connected careers within research systems appropriate for taking society on innovative journeys to solve the biggest challenges such as climate change and protecting endangered biodiversity? This paper and previous work describes analysis to arrive at design suggestions for an innovative base funding proposal that better achieves the historical intentions to meet national research needs that have evolved considerably over 30 years. The proposed system would reallocate existing and possibly additional government funding to support 30–50% of researchers’ salaries and related costs. The intent is to enhance the overall well being of the research workforce and knowledge systems by creating or incentivising a number of features that overcome current dilemmas, improving the responsiveness, connectivity and use of research within Aotearoa New Zealand, though self-organisation following Ostrom’s principles of common resource pool allocation. The proposed scheme has advantages over the current highly contestable system, and is expected to outperform tenure-driven systems. Link to full brief and citeable content: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6324775ReferenceBaisden, W Troy. (2022). 3. Designing Base Funding to Support the Research Workforce. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6324775Hash Tags#CC0#SubmissionSnippet#Fundin... Read more

]]>Tue, 15 Mar 2022 03:28:10 GMTTe Ara Paerangi Future Pathways Green Paper seeks a major transformation of Aotearoa New Zealand’s research, science and technology (RS&T) system and places ‘prioritisation’ at the head of its consultation process. Work to date has found that prioritisation is the most challenging topic, yet one that can provide a powerful test of whether proposed changes in all other categories can transform Aotearoa New Zealand’s research system as desired. This work analyses the potential to use more effective prioritisation as a target for transformational and feasible reform by sequentially applying frameworks identified by Meadows and Ostrom, to prioritise interventions in systems and manage common pool resources, respectively. The analysis identifies how to reframe the historic paradigms driving reform to prioritise and maximise the appropriation of well-being benefits of RS&T expenditure within Aotearoa, using an ‘NZ inc’ perspective. The analysis supports reframing and managing the nation’s RS&T institutions, infrastructure and funding as a common resource pool. Link to full brief (and citeable content): https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6300595ReferenceBaisden, W Troy. (2022). 2. A New Paradigm to Deliver Prioritisation: Towards Collaboration. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6300595Hash Tags#CC0#SubmissionSnippet#Prioritisation#NZAS

]]>Tue, 15 Mar 2022 03:25:48 GMTThe New Zealand Government has announced the Te Ara Paerangi Future Pathways consultation, based on a Green Paper outlining concerns about the state of the nation’s research funding, institutions and workforce. This working brief spearheads analysis by Te Pūnaha Matatini Centre of Research Excellence and the New Zealand Association of Scientists, combining efforts to examine the consultation themes, public consultation sessions, and possible frameworks for transformational change. We recommend a base funding system to support people as the foundational step to address all consultation themes, and sharing of briefs to support a wide range of stakeholders to develop a more trusted, open and effective model for public good research support as a common resource. For the full Brief (and citeable content): https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5952845ReferenceBaisden, W Troy, Stewart, Lucy, Craig Stevens, Priscilla Wehi, & Fiona McDonald. (2022). Lead Brief: Addressing Te Ara Paerangi Future Pathways to Deliver Transformation. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5952846Hash Tags#CC0#SubmissionSnippet#NZAS

]]>Tue, 15 Mar 2022 03:19:37 GMTKia ora koutou! Just wanted to share a piece we've been working on this week that provides a narrative on the PhD student experience. We touch on what the expectations of a PhD are (e.g. length and finances) versus what the reality is for a student in Aotearoa New Zealand. You can find the full citeable version here at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6348121

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