The research community in New Zealand is up in arms at the arguments put forward by Judith Collins, the former Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. | Photo: Ross Setford / Keystone

As of 2025, the Marsden Fund in New Zealand, which is maintained with state monies, is ceasing its support for projects in the humanities and social sciences. This decision was announced in late 2024 by Judith Collins, the then Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. One of her reasons was that “New Zealanders expect to see publicly funded research delivering clear benefits”.

The Marsden Fund only distributes NZD 75 million each year, but according to Science magazine, it is responsible for funding almost all of New Zealand’s research in the social sciences. It was also founded explicitly to support basic research.  The New Zealand research community has reacted in many instances with shock.

Troy Baisden , the co-president of the New Zealand Association of Scientists, has complained that “More than any other [disciplines], those eliminated investigate and help us understand who we are as a nation”. Nicola Gaston, the co-director of the MacDiarmid Institute for Nanotechnology, has said that physicists object to seeing the economic value of their work “weaponised against our colleagues in the humanities and the social sciences”. The Australasian Council of Deans of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities has accused Collins of “failing to understand how non-science disciplines contribute to the economy”.  Jane Harding, the President of Royal Society Te Apārangi that administers the Marsden Fund, has even written an open letter to Collins in which she insists that ensuring progress and well-being in New Zealand means investing in basic research in the very disciplines that are about to be cut. She also claims that these cuts will have “a disproportionate impact on women, and on Māori and Pacific researchers”. She is urging the government to rethink its decision.