Orgasms or seismic mitigation? RS&T funding
19/10/2006
Right to question, right to do
Anthony Scott, Executive Director, Association of Crown Research Institutes
Orgasms or seismic mitigation? While all of us in these shaky isles experience the latter, what hogs the headlines is the allocation of $38 million of Marsden Fund research money.
Let.s put aside whether panellists should receive monies even if all the proprieties have been observed. The Marsden.s procedures have been independently evaluated and endorsed as `gold standard.. To its credit, it has nonetheless welcomed ideas for improvement in perceptions, and in future no panellist will also be an applicant.
What should concern us is the revelation of a chasm between researchers and the public who fund them.
Ask `Why are we funding that?!. and some researchers say, `Give basic research more money so that there will be fewer disappointed applicants to question the process and outcomes..
Talking past each other is not quality discussion. Recipients of taxpayer largesse should always be ready to explain what they do without being offended that anyone should ask.
Some research shouts out for explanation: such as the $465,000 to three University of Auckland academics over three years for Acts and identities: Towards a new cultural history of sex.
Professor Reay (Dept of History), Associate Professor Jagose (Film, Television and Media Studies) and Senior Lecturer Dr Wallace (English) have a solid pedigree in sexuality-related research. Marsden frees them to focus on this specific topic.
When universities speak of research excellence and academic freedom, this includes curiosity-driven research with no utilitarian purpose. Society agrees to this, and receives creative, highly trained researchers and sometimes surprising outcomes. The value of a degree is linked to the university.s research reputation, be it in business studies or orgasms.
If, as projected, the Reay research is paradigm shifting, it will advance Auckland.s status as a world-class university, attracting more money, researchers and students.
To many of the public, the claim that the orgasm and its social context is an intellectually challenging research area, worthy of public funding, falls onto frankly astounded ears. Yet much currently received wisdom on sexuality originates from researchers, such as Kinsey, Money and Mead. Tomorrow, it may be Reay, Jagose and Wallace.
Rather than regret the furore, let.s embrace the opportunity to explain what research is done in New Zealand, and why. And we can do with a bit more humour, acknowledging that what to the researcher is self-evidently important may strike the uninitiated . often paying for it . as less so.
Ironically, the debate erupted on the eve of the annual Ig Nobels, announced at Harvard by real Nobel Laureates. The Ig Nobels recognise genuine science research which `first makes people laugh, then makes people think..
The 2005 winners included Pressures produced when penguins poo . calculations on avian defaecation; The Significance of Mr. Richard Buckley.s Exploding Trousers and the discovery that locusts are afraid of Darth Vader.
These were the work of New Zealanders, even if not all in New Zealand. Behind playful titles lie useful insights concerning ragwort, brain activity and penguins. projectile faeces. (We do have the Ross Dependency to keep safe!)
The prizes celebrate the unusual, honour the imaginative -- and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology.
Not all have been amused. Britain.s Chief Scientist requested that the organisers no longer award Ig Nobels to British scientists, claiming that they risked bringing 'genuine' experiments into ridicule . a view rejected by UK scientists.
On the other hand, we cannot laugh away the need for increased RS&T investment in New Zealand, perennially well below the OECD average.
The answer is not to insist on more for our own research interests or insist that all research be immediately and obviously `useful..
A cue comes from New Zealand science leaders who addressed the vexed question of where increased investment should go, without resorting to special pleading.
The Report of the Science Enterprises Group of university, Crown Research Institutes. and research association leaders. recommended that RS&T investment be allocated in five broad areas, from the immediately needed to the curiosity driven. It even indicated what proportion should go to each area.
This was a mature reflection on the need for a broad range of research allocated according to our unique national needs.
Similarly, we need to deliver appropriate investment into the various types of research entity, each with its particular role in the national innovation system.
Crown Research Institutes, for example, deliver identifiable value to sectors for New Zealand benefit. That statutory bias complements others. equally vital roles.
New Zealanders punish defensiveness and division by withholding support. So let.s use humour, imagination and candour to tell the tremendously exciting stories of what scientists do, and why. Even then there will be (should be!) some exclamations of shocked surprise. A new website (www.sciencenz.org.nz) will do just this.
Back to my initial question. A Crown Research Institute - GNS Science - says the whole North Island could be taken out by a full scale Taupo eruption, statistically well overdue. So I favour hazard research - now and lots of it! But my wife prefers the Reay research.
Should it really be an either/or decision?
