How tertiary funding now works

Steve Stannard writes:

In 2019/20 the fund was reviewed by an “independent expert panel” which proffered a number of recommendations. The minister of the time, Chris Hipkins, then released a Cabinet paper outlining the proposed changes to the next Performance Based Research Fund round based on these recommendations.

Practically, the Hipkins paper called for weighting Maori-related research to a multiple of three. That is, a portfolio describing Maori-related research activity would be three-times as valuable to the university as, for example, an equivalent education portfolio.

Further, a researcher who identifies as Māori will be given a weighting of two-and-a-half times as much as someone who does not. In other words, that Māori academic will bring in more than twice as much money as an equivalent non-Maori academic.

Finally, these weightings are multiple, such that a Māori academic researching things Māori will be “worth” to the institution seven-and-a-half times as much as a Pākehā or Asian academic of the same research level.

This is what Hipkins has implemented. If you have a great great great grandparent who was Maori, then you are worth 2.5 times as much as someone who doesn’t have such a great great great grandparent.

If an ethnicity-based value system like this had been in place 20 years ago I would certainly not have emigrated from Australia to take up an academic role in New Zealand.

Can you imagine explaining to top scientists and academics in other countries that if you come to New Zealand, your race will determine how likely you are to get research funding.