Bailout, Band-Aid or back to basics? 3 questions NZ’s university funding review must ask

28 June, 2023

Full article available on the Conversation.

(From the article)

"Yesterday’s announcement of NZ$128 million in new funding for universities has naturally been welcomed as a badly-needed reprieve. But we have to ask, is this a bailout for struggling institutions, or is it just a Band-Aid on a tertiary sector with deeper structural wounds?

It’s clear the pandemic massively exacerbated the challenges caused by years of funding below inflation rates. All universities have seen previous redundancy rounds, some of which may have been inevitable.

So the government’s simultaneous proposal to review the tertiary funding model offers a chance to take the system back to basics – to remind us why these institutions are publicly funded in the first place, and to give them a warrant of fitness for the 21st century."

Whatever academic fat there was to lose is gone. Recent cuts have bitten into flesh, and now the bone saws are out.
Professor Nicola Gaston Co-Director The MacDiarmid Institute

Starved of funds and vision, struggling universities put NZ’s entire research strategy at risk

19 June, 2023

Full article available on the Conversation.

(From the article)

"The crisis in Aotearoa New Zealand’s university and wider research sector did not happen overnight. While funding shortfalls and sweeping redundancies are now making headlines, the underlying problems have been evident for years.

As I wrote after last year’s budget, financial support for research across our universities and crown research institutes “is steadily eroding and has been doing so for some time”, given the impacts of inflation."

With redundancies wreaking havoc across the university sector in particular, getting new funding into the system should have been a priority in this year’s budget. The opportunity cost of not doing this is simply too great.
Professor Nicola Gaston Co-Director The MacDiarmid Institute

University redundancies undermine Government's own science strategy - academic

14 June, 2023

(From the podcast)

"An academic is warning cuts to university staff is short-sighted and will undermine the government's own science goals.

Hundreds of academic jobs at the University of Otago and Victoria University of Wellington face being cut as tertiary institutions across the country tackle ballooning costs and declining roles.

Professor Nicola Gaston is the Co-Director of the MacDiarmid Institute and a professor in the Department of Physics at The University of Auckland. She says the proposed cuts not only jeopardise the national research capability but also highlight the need for a collective approach to address the funding crisis. She is calling for a rethink of how we fund and operate our universities and research institutes."

June 14, 2023

When downsizing means destroying our universities

Full article available on The Spinoff.

(From the article)

"When we talk about redundancies like those recently announced at Vic and Otago, we’re talking about more than job losses, writes Nicola Gaston.

Recent announcements of up to 260 job losses at Victoria University of Wellington come hot on the heels of similar announcements at the University of Otago. A casual observer might be forgiven for being surprised: minister of education Jan Tinetti’s press release from the budget just two weeks ago talked up the “biggest increase in at least 20 years” to tertiary subsidies, in the face of “global inflationary pressures”.

That certainly sounds like a meaningful amount, but it hasn’t moved the dial. So what gives?"

Our university leaders need to sit down as a group with the minister of education and advocate as a collective for the funding that the sector needs.
Professor Nicola Gaston Co-Director The MacDiarmid Institute