New Zealand’s research sector was again left empty-handed in this year’s budget, which largely reallocated existing funding to pay for the center-right government’s plans to boost the economy and entice international investment in science and innovation.
Many researchers described the budget as unsurprising, but nevertheless disappointing. The government expects science to contribute to economic growth, but continues to undermine the sector’s capacity to do so by cutting research funding, they argue. It’s “largely a shuffling of the deck chairs, with no new investment in the major funds, and some taking from Peter to give to Paul,” says Tahu Kukutai, a demographer at the University of Waikato.
The budget sees several pots of money go toward making good on plans to shake up the research system. NZ$20 million will go toward merging the seven existing national science bodies known as Crown Research Institutes into three new Public Research Organisations focused on earth sciences, the “bioeconomy,” and health and forensic sciences. Another NZ$5.8 million will go toward establishing a scientific advisory council for the prime minister.
The budget also puts NZ$84.6 million over 4 years toward establishing Invest NZ, an agency tasked with attracting foreign investment into research and innovation, modeled on the successes of similar initiatives in Singapore and Ireland.
A further NZ$22.8 million over 4 years will go toward funding a gene-technology regulator tasked with overseeing the country’s shift to a new system of governing genetic technologies. The new rules are expected to pass into law before the end of the year, and will overturn the country’s long-standing ban on field trials and the release of gene-edited organisms.
All these initiatives are being funded by cuts to many other areas of science. The largest losers are the Strategic Science Investment Fund, designed to support investment in projects with long-term benefits to the country, which sees its budget go down by NZ$24 million; the Health Research Fund, which loses NZ$17 million; and the Catalyst Fund, which supports international collaborations and is down NZ$12 million. New Zealand’s largest source of funding through competitive grants, the Endeavour Fund, remains stagnant at NZ$245 million but has canceled all applications for the 2026 funding round to “reduce the operational burden of applying for funding” during the mergers of Crown Research Institutes. The Marsden Fund will lose about NZ$5 million annually from its NZ$79 million budget from the next fiscal year. This fund was originally set up to support fundamental research, but the government last year eliminated its support for social sciences and shifted half of its grants to projects focused on economic benefits.
Overall, science will receive $1.17 billion this year—down about NZ$45 million from last year’s budget, according to the New Zealand Association of Scientists. “This is exactly what scientists feared would happen. … The government talks about science as a cornerstone for economic growth, but it is unwilling to put its money where its mouth is,” says association Co-President Lucy Stewart.
Richard Blaikie, the deputy vice-chancellor, research & enterprise, at the University of Otago and a director at Otago Innovation, welcomes the intention to strengthen international investment in New Zealand research but says the changes should have come as additional investment rather than a redistribution of “already very thinly spread” funding. New Zealand competes with other economies that share the same goals but invest much more in science and innovation, he notes.
Frédérique Vanholsbeeck, the director of the University of Auckland’s Dodd-Walls Centre, which focuses on photonic and quantum technologies, says she’s disappointed the budget did not include any funding for a Public Research Organisation for advanced technologies. With diminishing support for fundamental research and modern infrastructure, New Zealand could “struggle to enjoy its rightful share” of the global market for quantum technologies, she says.
The budget delivered some bright spots for early- and mid-career researchers, who will have more fellowship support, and for the He Ara Whakahihiko Capability Fund, dedicated to Māori-led research, which saw its budget almost double to NZ$11 million. Still, “that’s a relatively big boost but from a very low investment base,” Kukutai says. “In short, the crumb remains a crumb.”
