Perhaps worth talking about *why* external grants like Marsdens are crucial for many, many types of social science and humanities research. Point 1 is that with narrow exceptions, universities don't pay for reseach beyond an academic's salary & office space. Anything else needs a grant to happen. - ThreadSky

dreddieclark.bsky.social • 90 days ago

Perhaps worth talking about *why* external grants like Marsdens are crucial for many, many types of social science and humanities research.

Point 1 is that with narrow exceptions, universities don't pay for reseach beyond an academic's salary & office space. Anything else needs a grant to happen.

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bjjanssen.bsky.social•90 days ago

As a CRI scientist Marsden's are a tremendously important lever to keep some fundamental research continuing in the increasingly applied funding environment

kbneal.bsky.social•90 days ago

Yes 100% The economic imperative is disastrous for exploratory basic science too. Nobody can tell if or when your experiments may bear demonstrable economic fruit.

blueshiftnz.bsky.social•89 days ago

Somebody told Judith that only one in fifty projects produce something that makes money.
So she says "Sweet, we'll just fund those ones then"

firehorsemia.bsky.social•90 days ago

My Mum was a research neuropsychologist at Canterbury in the 80s. I remember the anxious wait to find out if she’d got enough funding every year

dreddieclark.bsky.social•90 days ago

40% of each lecturer's time is funded to go to research time. If you need more time, or a research assisant, or to do field work - a survey, interview work, go visit an archive out of town or overseas - to do your research you have to find the money yourself. Via grants.

drdrehistorian.bsky.social•90 days ago

Do many unis still have 40/40/20 in NZ? I have 0 research allocation over here, I need grants to buy out teaching or just do it in my free time because I love writing. I'm working on T&R conversion but it'll only be 10–20%, my faculty is clamping down on research time because it doesn't make money

dreddieclark.bsky.social•90 days ago

Yeah we're still nominally 40/40/20. In reality teaching load is such that when teaching a full load it is entirely impossible to get remotely close to 40% research without working every weekend (which I'm not paid to do so I refuse to do).

drdrehistorian.bsky.social•90 days ago

I'm 70/10/20, the 10 being "innovation in the study of learning and teaching" that in practice I view as research time, since innovative research underpins teaching. My first 2 years here, though, even 100% teaching was insufficient; I found my subjects in such a bad state, weekends were essential

dreddieclark.bsky.social•90 days ago

Oh yes, this goes to another realisation I had while working weekends over the summer last year; institutions absolutely do not properly account for the work involved in course (re)design.

drdrehistorian.bsky.social•90 days ago

None whatsoever. What sort of allocation does lecture prep get over there? We get 2 hours for a 1-hour lecture. That's scarcely enough to proofread lectures I've given for years and am very happy with. Yet if I ask for 5 hours to survey recent lit to update one, it's taken as an outrageous request

dreddieclark.bsky.social•90 days ago

Point 2: not having access to funding makes some types of research impossible. Not on the basis of subject matter - you can't just single out research the ACT party doesn't like - but whole ways of interrogating the world.

If you're a theorist (like me), you can limp on with little funding. But...

dreddieclark.bsky.social•90 days ago

There will be people who cannot do the job they're very good at and the public purse pays them to do at all properly as a direct result of this decision from government. They'll either be underutilised or just *leave*.

It's short sighted. It's mean spirited. And it won't meaningfully save money.

mehr.nz•89 days ago

I'd say there's indeed gonna be a lot of leaving if this sort of absurdity continues. Plenty of people have good options elsewhere

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