The Wire with Caeden

Last week, the Minister for Science, Innovation, and Technology, Judith Collins, announced that the 30-year-old Marsden Fund would no longer support social sciences and humanities. 

In 2024, Māori made up 13% of all Marsden funded investigators. By taking away the humanities and social sciences panel, that number plunges to just 5.5%.

The decision has been harshly criticised by researchers across academic disciplines. Now, 80 Rutherford Discovery Fellows have come together to present an open letter to the Minister voicing their concerns, condemning the ‘damaging changes’ to the Marsden Fund’s terms of reference which they want to see reversed, immediately. 

Producer Sofia spoke to Principal Social Scientist at GNS Science Te Pū Ao, Dr Nicholas Cradock-Henry, about this announcement and his concerns. 

She also spoke to Kaihautū of Te Whare Whakatupu Mātauranga, Te Wānanga o Raukawa; and Honorary Adjunct Professor at Te Kawa a Māui - School of Māori Studies at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington, Dr Carwyn Jones (Ngāti Kahungunu), about how the Marsden Fund cuts disproportionately impact Māori researchers.

The expert mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, part of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council, has written to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon to express its concern about the Treaty Principles Bill.

Wire Host Caeden spoke to University of Auckland Law School Associate Professor Andrew Erueti about the letter and its significance. 

Recently, an independent evaluation was conducted on Foodstuff’s trial of facial recognition technology in their security system at 25 of their outlets in the North Island.

The evaluation found that using facial recognition in security cameras reduced crime and harmful behaviour at foodstuffs outlets by 16%, based on an examination of 1742 facial recognition alerts for repeat offenders.

However, there were also 9 instances were customers were misidentified as offenders by the system, with one woman who was wrongly removed from a Pak’n’save launching a case againsts facial recognition technology with the Human Rights Review Tribunal, claiming that the technology was discriminatory.

Oto spoke to Guhan Gunasekara, an Associate Professor of Commercial Law at the Univeristy of Auckland, to discuss the implications of facial recognition technology at retail outlets, and what we can expect in the aftermath of the independent evaluation into the trial.

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.