We Are The University Open Letter: Cuts To Marsden Funding For Humanities And Social Sciences

This is an attack on students, evidence, the economy, and democracy. This is not hyperbole.

Judith Collins’ announcement that the Marsden fund would no longer support research in the Social Sciences and Humanities is a shortsighted political attack on dissenting voices against the fast-tracking, anti-evidence, tobacco-bought coalition government. The intention of this change is subtle, but the implication is long lasting. Marsden funding is a significant career stepping-stone for researchers to develop their research skills. This attack on the Marsden fund is an attack on students' ability to transition into research and ability to develop new knowledge. It is an attack on evidence and, in the long term, is an attack on students broadly. By tightening the bottleneck of researcher funding, Collins is crushing the ability for new ideas and new teachers to enter the realms of humanities and social sciences, consequently disincentivizing students' study of these subjects. A foolish move, this cycle will be difficult to reverse as our best & brightest in these fields leave overseas—as if enough of them hadn’t already.

The New Zealand government hugely subsidises humanities-based industries because they bring so much value to the country through film & media, tourism, diverse perspectives and, not to forget, export education. This strangling of key New Zealand industries is generational violence, yet another career pathway and export industry which improves the lives of all New Zealanders, destroyed for future generations by selfish politicians.

Self-directed research, such as previously enabled by the Marsden fund, allows academics to do their jobs. The freedom to investigate and share knowledge, including ‘inconvenient truths’, requires academic freedom. The right to academic freedom is the tool that enables researchers to do their jobs as the critics and conscience of society, a responsibility enshrined in the Education and Training Act 2020 and the 1989 Education Act prior. Being critics and conscience of society, academics are expected to illuminate obscured risks and provide evidence to support effective decision-making. This change is Judith Collins, an upper manager, interfering in the systems that allow our research workers to do their jobs.

In order to be critical, and honest, about the structures of society, the academy and its workers must have freedom from threat, particularly from the ruling government, which holds so much power over the economy and who benefits from it. The coalition government’s response to criticism from academics in these fields is tyrannical, cementing their position as authoritarian and anti-evidence. This is a hill we must be willing to die on, for if we play ball with authoritarianism now, it sets a devastating precedent. All institutions that hold power to account will be persuaded to ‘obey in advance’ to secure their jobs and careers. This, of course, is bad for science & research, but has flow-on effects for our democratic capacity as a country. This Trumpian politics is not one we want in Aotearoa.

As universities seek to increase their transdisciplinary research capacity, recognising the amplified value of intersectional ideas and research across the humanities, social sciences and STEM, the coalition government is disguising their attack on social sciences behind normative and unsubstantiated claims regarding economic return.

We will not stand for this one-term government.

We are the university.

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