The New Zealand Government yesterday announced, as part of this year's budget, a further $410.5 million for science and innovation over the next four years. This new funding will eventually take cross-government investment in science and innovation to $1.6 billion.
The new funding will be broken down across a number of funds, some new and some existing, including:
- the Endeavour Fund, the renamed and refocussed Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) Contestable fund, which will have a focus on long-term, high impact, mission led programmes of science
- increased funding for the Marsden Fund, which provides grants for investigator-initiated research.
- the new Strategic Science Investment Fund, which brings together a number of previous funding initiatives, including strategic funding for independent and Crown Research organisations, and funding for core science programmes and infrastructure, and
- $20 million for the Global Research Alliance to support research into mitigating emissions from livestock.
Full details of how the increased funding will be allocated can be found here.