Scientists should unite against divide and conquer nonsense

When I was sent the latest report on our science system changes by the Science Media Centre a couple of weeks ago – on the last work day before Easter – I bit my tongue. This isn’t typically my style. I feel that those of us in the science system who understand the consequences of a science policy have an obligation to give honest commentary. But as my nana always used to say: “If you can’t say anything nice, say nothing at all.”

The report is the latest in a series that relate to the “once in a generation” changes that have been rolling out in the last couple of years, affecting our publicly funded research institutes (now called public research organisations) and our universities. This recent report addresses the question of how funding should be prioritised.

Over Easter, the reaction was swift and familiar. Scientists warned that funding for agriculture and horticulture – sectors in which New Zealand genuinely leads – could be sacrificed in the rush towards “advanced technology”. Others argued that although it’s sensible to pick winners, we shouldn’t do it by gutting what already works.

As a computational scientist, I know full well the power of divide and conquer algorithms. Yet again, we were invited to take sides; tech versus agriculture, one discipline being pitted against another.

Defending ‘advanced tech’ would have been to endorse the Government’s definition of what that means – which I often think too narrow to be useful. And on the other hand, I am always here to argue in support of disciplines other than my own, for the social sciences and the humanities and for fundamental science, as well as applied.

It eventually struck me that the most important thing to say right now is that this isn’t the time for scientists to turn on each other. 

We need to support each other, to get through these attacks on science, these attacks on the value that our university system has to offer Aotearoa New Zealand.

It did make me remember, however, a quite personal story of science policy.

In 2011, Sir Paul Callaghan, scientist, environmentalist, founding director of the MacDiarmid Institute and noted New Zealander, came out publicly against the Green Party’s policy to invest substantially in clean technology.

“In the global marketplace, export success comes from being the best in the world at what you do,” he said. There was, he argued, no reason why we can expect to be best in the world at cleantech.

“Our brilliance has been in the ‘weird stuff’ that the big players don’t think to exploit.”

I joined the MacDiarmid Institute in 2009, so Sir Paul Callaghan’s message, that we will be “good at what we are good at” and that that might look like “weird stuff” has stayed with me.

Nonetheless, in 2018, together with my colleague Justin Hodgkiss as co-directors of the MacDiarmid Institute, I led a shift in focus at the institute away from being application-agnostic and towards a clear focus, one that centred on the idea that all materials are natural resources, and that sustainability lies at the heart of materials science.

We didn’t do this because we thought we knew better than Callaghan. We did it because we took his principle seriously – “we will be good at what we are good at”. That it is the scientists, with their specific expertise, who are best placed to judge the best application of that expertise.

So in 2018 we asked our scientists, where can your expertise make the most difference? The answers were strikingly consistent. Water. Energy. Climate change. Sustainability. Air quality.

Scientific fashions v funding strategy

As Callaghan said in 2011: “Politicians latch on to fashions, and the latest fashion is Clean Technology. Ten years ago it was biotechnology. There is a huge danger in the application of political bias to the ‘smart economy’.”

His warning is more pertinent than ever. The danger is not in some artificial distinction between disciplines, or the Government’s ‘strategic pillars’ – Bioeconomy, Technology, Environment, and Health. Of course, all of these things are important.

The danger is in who makes funding decisions. The recent report proposes that most funding is split between ‘investigator-led (contestable)’ and ‘strategic’ – ie where the ministry chooses what it funds.

It is the balance between these two that concerns me most, or more accurately, the lack thereof. Under the current proposals, ‘strategic’ investment explicitly excludes investigator‑led research, in which scientists propose ideas and compete for support. Contestable funding is excellent at generating new ideas. But making those ideas have real‑world impacts requires scientific leadership, long‑term thinking, and trust in expertise. And understanding the detail of the science.

This report suggests we should increasingly be trusting politicians and bureaucrats to make scientific choices. That decisions such as the failed $30m investment (of public money) in Methane SAT are to be expected, and not subject to any form of public accountabililty.

Yet researchers are scrutinised as never before. As Seohee Ashley Park, on Newsroom, commented: “There is one sentence in the assessment criteria for the AI research platform that deserves particular attention. It states the highest-scoring proposal may not be chosen. So, a project can score well against the selection criteria but still not be picked.”

It seems that all this accountability is being wielded against scientists, while the politicians and bureaucrats are shielded from a similar level of scrutiny.

This strikes me as hypocritical. Researchers constantly review their work – in peer review, contestable funding applications, and evaluations of impact that range from citation metrics to private investment in commercialisation. So, bring on the scrutiny.

What this also means is that we have other sources beyond government that we can look to for an assessment of the prospects of cleantech in Aotearoa in 2026.

Much has changed since Paul Callaghan made his pronouncement. And the private sector does not rely on the government to decide priorities.

According to the NZ Growth Capital Partners and Angel Association NZ’s Young Company Finance report, “sector strength sits in software, climate-tech and deep-tech” – with cleantech and climate tech accounting for a full quarter of the investment made in large funding rounds (those over $10m) of startups.

The Cleantech Impact report 2026, launched on 22 April, demonstrates increasing private investment in the sector, and serious emissions reduction potential – nine companies alone could contribute as much as New Zealand forestry by 2030, with a ten or even hundred-fold increase projected to 2040.

Whether cleantech is fashionable is no longer the point. It’s economics.

Just as cleantech companies will succeed or fail based on hard economic calculus, scientific research delivers value when based on hard scientific reality and knowledge. Yet the very fact that scientists have skin in the game – that careers are built on repeated, continual assessment of productivity and impact on the field – seems to be interpreted in government to mean that scientists have some sort of conflict of interest, so need to be kept at arm’s length from strategic decisions.

The Government’s science reforms place ‘strategic’ and ‘investigator-led’ forms of funding in opposition to each other. I see this as the main barrier to progress, rather than a solution. Scientific leadership needs to be part of the strategy.

Why not return to basics? Fund our universities properly, provide mechanisms to support our graduates to build careers here rather than board a flight to Australia, and fund high-quality, internationally excellent research – assessed as such through international peer review.

Enough of this divide and conquer nonsense. We know why and how the algorithm works. But scientists just want to get on with the job, and be trusted to do so.