Marsden Funding Cuts - w/ Nicola Gaston from The Department of Physics at the University of Auckland: 11 December, 2024

Just last week, Science, Innovation and Technology Minister - Judith Collins, announced that the government would be slashing funding to humanities and social sciences programmes funded under the Marsden Fund.

Collins said that Marsden funding needed to be redirected to natural science fields, such as physics, mathematics and biology, which she said had more "tangible" impacts on the economy.

However, the move has been criticised by academics from both humanities and social sciences background, who've highlighted the importance of social science in highlighting societal inequities and called the funding cuts "ideologically-driven". 

Oto spoke to Nicola Gaston from the Department of Physics at the University of Auckland for her perspective on the cuts to humanities and social science programs in the Marsden fund as a professor in a natural science field.