Budget 09: Research funds 'not enough to compete'

Scientists have welcomed the extra $36 million for the Marsden Fund.

Modest increases to research and development funding will not help the Government lift living standards to match our Australian neighbours, scientists said yesterday.

The Government announced a round of increases to science funding in the 2009 Budget - including an extra $36 million to the Marsden Fund for "blue skies research" and an extra $40 million for Crown Research Institutes over the next four years.

Dr Paul Callaghan, the Alan MacDiarmid Professor of Physical Sciences at Victoria University in Wellington, said scientists should be about $28 million a year better off if you did not count the loss of Labour's planned research and development tax credits.

"I see this as a status quo Budget. It really leaves per capita investment [in science] at around 0.52 per cent of GDP, which is well below Australia and the OECD average of 0.68 per cent."

Anthony Scott, chief executive of Science New Zealand, which represents the eight Crown Research Institutes, said the Budget delivered real increases to research and development in a "very constrained environment".

A set of new Prime Minister's science prizes worth $4 million over four years, along with the appointment of chief science adviser Professor Peter Gluckman, would lift the profile of science, he said.

But Dr Callaghan said the Government needed to do more to build up new, innovation-based businesses that did not use up land or take a toll on the environment. "To me it [the Budget] doesn't square with the Government's desire to lift New Zealand up the OECD rankings to a per capita GDP level with Australia."

Victoria University Professor Jeffrey Tallon agreed a major change in science funding was needed to improve economic performance.

All three welcomed the $9 million yearly addition to the Marsden Fund.

"We have a lot of capable young scientists coming up who are not able to get funding, " said Dr Callaghan.

But Dr Tallon said the boost would lift the proportion of successful applicants from 11 per cent to 13 per cent, compared with 42 per cent for a similar fund in Denmark.

Dr Callaghan said there appeared to be nothing in the Budget to replace the scrapped research and development tax credits for business.