Royal Society's Marsden grants an embarrassment

MEDIA RELEASE

ROYAL SOCIETY'S MARSDEN GRANTS AN EMBARRASSMENT

3 NOVEMBER 2016
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Many taxpayers will be raising an eyebrow at today’s announcement of the recipients of $65 million of Marsden Fund grants, says the Taxpayers’ Union. Their Executive Director, Jordan Williams says:

“Gifting $300k for the research of ‘East Side Orchestras: Music, Poverty, and Social Change’ and $530k to figure out ‘What is the Southland accent’ raises the obvious question of whether there are higher priorities for taxpayer money.”

“The Marsden Fund’s purpose is supposedly to support excellence in science, engineering, maths, social sciences and the humanities. If ‘excellence’ includes some these low priority research areas, clearly the Royal Society and the Government have more money than sense.”

ENDS

The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is an independent and membership-driven activist group, dedicated to being the voice for Kiwi taxpayers in the corridors of power.

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