Nā Te Tumu Whakarae | Chief Executive update

Tēnā koutou.

As I write this update we are in the midst of compiling and submitting our collective thoughts for the two reviews currently underway into New Zealand's Science System and the Universities, both chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman.

The deadline for submissions on the Science System was last Friday (17 May). Across the Society, submissions were made from our Council, Academy Executive Committee, Early Career Researcher Forum, and the Marsden Council.

The Council’s submission to that review is available on our website for reference.  In it we have tried to achieve a balance between some of the more detailed structural questions being posed, and the essential high-level question of… What future are we envisaging for the science, innovation and technology system in New Zealand?  One statement we make that could usefully sum up our response to this high-level question is that this is a future where:

Science innovation and technology form part of the larger ‘ecosystem’ that enables our nation to flourish and are major contributors to our prosperity, the cohesiveness of society and a future where Aotearoa New Zealand is guided and inspired by science and research.

Also:

Human skills and capability, and intellectual capital in SI&T are recognised, nurtured, prioritised, and enabled to flourish as the key assets that will drive all aspects of the system.

We say much more in addition to the above, of course, but it sets the scene that for the SI&T system to flourish, the wider environment in which it sits must also be flourishing and that is a vital component of the whole.  We will pick this theme up again in our submission to the Universities review.

Since my last update we have also had the privilege of celebrating the Prime Minister’s Science Prize winners with a wonderful event held in Parliament on 1 May.  The Prime Minister, Rt Hon Christopher Luxon, and Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology and Minister for Space, Hon Judith Collins, presented the winners with their prizes, making it a very special celebration for all.  Please see the article later in the newsletter and the full news item at the link above for further details of the winners and their extraordinary work.

In closing I would like to mention an event the Society and Marsden Fund Council have supported over a number of years, the Auckland Writers Festival.  This Festival is….

… one of this country’s premiere cultural events and its largest and most successful literary event, hosting world leading commentators and writers in Auckland every year. It has run for 23 years and has annual attendances of more than 83,000. It comprises over 200 public events, gathering together 230 of the world’s best writers and thinkers to celebrate the world of books and ideas.

The 2024 Festival took place from Thursday 16 to Sunday 19 May in the Aotea Centre, and the Society and Marsden Fund Council supported three talks at the event: How To Survive Te Ara ki te Ora; The Science Behind Science Fiction; and The Philosophy of Care,  and also co-hosted with the University of Auckland Arts Department a pre-Gala reception for approximately 70 guests.  The Festival is an extraordinary melting pot of ideas, imagination, fact, fiction, scholarly endeavour and a celebration of the different expressions of that endeavour.  If you have never attended one of these Festivals, I would thoroughly recommend it!

Ngā manaakitanga,

Paul Atkins
Chief Executive