Research value cannot be over-stated
I make no apologies for posting the following article on Silver Fern Sports. With the goal of presenting New Zealand sports history, and, occasionally sports history of other countries, research is the whole basis of keeping this page alive.
Research in all spheres is vital to the progress of our society in any field, and any diminution of its value is a blow for all, whether they recognise that or not. Dame Anne Salmond penned the following remarks for Newsroom today.
If we as a nation are doomed to have our research confined to the needs of the economy of the day then we are all in for a very shallow future. But, after striking this blow, knowing its effects will still be felt after the Minister concerned has gone, it will shine as another notch on the lengthening measuring stick of short-term pragmatism for immeasurable harm.
Dame Anne’s words follow:
Well, its official. The word has come down from on high. According to the Beehive, cabinet ministers don’t need evidence-based insights into the needs and experiences of New Zealanders, or the lives of human beings in general.
They already have perfect knowledge of these matters.
The sheer improbability of this is breathtaking. It is also a breach of the coalition agreements. There, the Government promised that its decision-making would be principled, accountable, democratic, people-focused and evidence-based.
In health, education, housing, law and order, welfare, urban design, immigration and the economy, evidence-based decision-making requires rigorous inquiry into the diverse experiences of New Zealanders, and the likely impacts of policy decisions on their lives.
Evidence-based decision-making also requires reliable insights into the languages, laws, politics and histories not just of New Zealand, but of those other countries with whom we trade, choose as allies, or who might threaten our lives and tranquillity.
The disciplines that train researchers to produce this kind of knowledge are, precisely, the social sciences and the humanities. And yet in New Zealand, it seems, world-class research in these fields is no longer needed, and people are irrelevant to the economy.
Without warning, the Government has just announced that it is removing the social sciences and humanities from the Marsden Fund, the ‘blues skies’ research fund run by the Royal Society of New Zealand.
To give you some idea of its impacts, in the Marsden Fund the social sciences include public health, nursing, education, psychology, urban design and environmental studies, Māori studies and indigenous studies, human geography, social anthropology, public policy, political science and architecture.
The humanities include English, literature, languages, linguistics, religion, philosophy, classics, cultural studies, media studies, art history, film, history and law.
Many New Zealanders will have studied these subjects, and many of their children will wish to do the same.
According to the Minister for Science, Innovation and Technology, Judith Collins, however, “real impact on our economy will come from areas such as physics, chemistry, maths, engineering and biomedical sciences.”
This shows a deep misunderstanding of the scientific project.
These disciplines are necessary, but not sufficient for a successful economy in New Zealand.
For a successful economy and a vibrant society, evidence-based insights into the lives of people are also vital. Like the Government, the economy is there to serve the people, not the other way around.
New Zealanders have been eloquent about their priorities – high quality health care and education; a fair housing market; reducing crime and improving public order; creating jobs and reducing unemployment; and improving race relations and social harmony.
In all of these areas, the quality of decision-making relies on reliable evidence, not on ministerial ‘reckons,’ and poor decision-making has huge economic impacts.
Without evidence-based insights in all of these areas, how will the Government know how to shape policies that are likely to work for New Zealanders? And how will we know whether its policies are working, and for whom?
At the same time, transdisciplinary research is vital for understanding the impacts of human ways of living on the dynamics of oceans, the atmosphere, soils, forests, rivers and all other life forms, and vice versa.
In cutting-edge science, the natural and the social sciences are no longer radically separated.
The Marsden Fund was established by a visionary Minister of Science and Technology in a National government, Simon Upton, and it has always supported leading edge research in the social sciences and the humanities.
As a scholar in history, anthropology and linguistics, I am indebted to Simon Upton and that National government. Without the support of the Marsden Fund over the years, I would have not been able to work in my own country.
Nor would I have had the honour of being elected to the National Academy of Sciences in the United States, the American Philosophical Society founded by Benjamin Franklin, and the British Academy, a privilege I’ve tried to repay.
From that international vantage point, it is clear that these prestigious academies highly value the social sciences and humanities. Without cutting-edge research in these fields, New Zealand risks becoming a global scientific outlier.
Without access to ‘blue skies’ research funding, New Zealand universities will struggle to attract and retain world class scholars and international students in all of these disciplines, and transdisciplinary studies in many other areas, putting their international reputations and rankings at risk.
This in turn will encourage even more young New Zealanders to leave the country to live and study and work elsewhere, since their own universities can no longer offer internationally credible degrees across a wide range of subjects. This will have real economic impacts.
The exodus is already alarming, and this will make it worse. Who wants to stay in a country if all their children are gone?
Our colleagues across the scientific community have called this announcement “chilling”. It is also scientifically illiterate. This is policy-making at its most arbitrary and self-defeating.
Hardly a recipe for a successful economy, or a bright future for New Zealanders and New Zealand.