BASIC RESEARCH FUNDING
At this time many of New Zealand's research mathematicians are preparing bids for the next round of the Marsden Fund. We are fortunate that more money is being channelled into basic research. I have attended two public addresses by the Simon Upton, who has passionately promoted "blue skies" research as an endeavour to be valued in our society. His enthusiasm appears to have been instrumental in the rapid growth of this fund at a time when market force philosophies have been responsible for declining government support for many activities in this country that do not provide immediate and transparent financial returns. However, with decreasing proportional support for tertiary education, the Vote Education block grant, with which universities had funded their basic research, we may not be gaining much headway.
The process of research grants requires us to specify in some detail our future research activity. On reflection I believe that some of my more profitable results had not been foreseeable, under the current system this would not have attracted external support. The University's block grant funding enabled us to pursue our own particular research interests without the need for predicting outcomes. I hope that under the new regime, this freedom is not completely lost.
One strategy rumoured to be used by some overseas researchers to overcome this difficulty, is to apply for funding for research "up their sleeve", i.e. results that have already been obtained. The funding granted is then used to seed the next set of results. Although this might suggest some degree of dishonesty, it does still require a match of peer reviewed research to the funding, and the continuation of this process depends on the production of further high quality research. It also requires some unfunded research to initiate the process.
However, such a scheme, if it was used this way, should not be done covertly. Perhaps to encourage continuing research activity, researchers could be rewarded for their current achievements with a grant to support further research. The current scheme works partially this way, in that research track record is a factor in the success of the application.
I recently attended a talk by Sir Colin Spedding, retired former director of Grasslands Research Institute at Hurley, UK, and advisor to the Minister of Agriculture in London. He illustrated his discussion on research funding policies with the statement that no British researcher had predicted the outbreak of BSE (mad cow disease) in Britain, and suggested that any timely proposal to undertake research in this area would not have been funded. (Indeed I suspect that if it had been predicted, the warning may well not have been heeded, and if the warning were heeded, the benefits of avoiding BSE would not have been known nor appreciated.) He advocated that a certain proportion of the basic research funding be targeted to the researcher, rather than to the research, without regard for the direction of the research. Although much of this research might never make a great financial return, it opens the way for some high impact research that otherwise might not occur, some of which may add significantly to the economic welfare of the nation.
How might such a scheme be implemented? We could possibly have a competitive scheme whereby a few prolific quality researchers at mid career, could be awarded long term research fellowships, perhaps 10-20 years. This fellowship should be full time and fully funded and affiliated to an appropriate research institution. In return the researcher could be charged with the responsibility to publish her/his work, give papers regularly at local research conferences, take on a specified number of research students and post doc.s. The selection criteria should reflect her/his abilities in these activities, as well as a critical review of current research performance being of an exceptional international standard. Being relieved of undergraduate teaching responsibilities, administration and repeated research grant applications s/he would be able to concentrate her/his efforts into research.
Perhaps such something like this might be possible, to encourage unfettered undirected basic research of high quality, and eventually produce a high return.
Readers will find a new department on the back page, Mathematics Miniatures, a suggestion from John Butcher, which he has volunteered to edit. I hope that you will find this of interest and will offer comment, support and in particular provide material for future issues.
Mike Hendy