Funding research is disheartening
This year has been tough for me, sciencewise. I had to take a mental health day a few weeks ago after a funding application was rejected. It was my fourth rejection this year and another followed a few days later. Each application took several weeks to prepare.
I remember once chatting with my brother about my job as a university scientist, how I spend my time thinking of neat science projects, and then trying to find the money for the experiments. He was astonished: ‘‘Doesn’t your university pay for your research?’’ Nope.
On a standard university lecturer contract, I’m paid to do research two days a week. This means I plan experiments, sort out safety, and supervise a great team of students and scientists who do the work. I also have to find the money to pay salaries and buy everything they need, like petri-dishes, tubes and chemicals. Hence all the funding applications.
Without money, our projects progress at a snail’s pace, if at all. A few years ago, I tried to get funding to educate teens about chlamydia, a bacterial infection that often goes undiagnosed and can lead to infertility. After several rejections, I parked the idea. Our chlamydia rates continue to rise.
Before you think I suck at funding applications, at least two of the applications I submitted this year were ranked in the top 20 per cent of those received. Unfortunately, there was only money to fund the top 10-15 per cent.
New Zealand spends significantly less on research than other OECD countries, just 1.3 per cent of GDP compared with 1.9 per cent for Australia and 2.2 per cent for Singapore.
The Government’s current strategy is to get more businesses funding research, but we also need cash to fund more applications like mine.
Where could the money come from? Earlier this year, a new law passed that aims to stop multinational companies legally side-stepping their tax obligations. Each year, we lose millions in potential tax revenue because companies shift well over $1 billion in profits offshore.
I’ll be pleading with the Government to put some of the new taxes into science and maybe next year I’ll have better luck.
Clever detective work by school children and technical assistance from adults solved a mystery plaguing the beaches of Taranaki.
The students of Oakura School, southwest of New Plymouth, and New Plymouth’s Highlands Intermediate were undertaking projects to understand and protect important species on their coast. While on beach visits, they repeatedly came across plastic shotgun wads.
These wads separate the gunpowder from the metal pellets (the shot) inside a shotgun cartridge. They have other purposes, but when the gun is fired, they are pushed out the end of the gun and fly through the air for some distance before gravity pulls them back to earth.
The cartridges themselves – also plastic – typically fall to the feet of the shooter and are easily gathered.
So what were the wads doing on Taranaki’s beaches?
Oakura and Highlands schools were enrolled in an initiative called Project Hotspot, which uses citizen science to ‘‘better protect coastal threatened species’’. It’s funded by Curious Minds, a central government initiative to encourage engagement with science.
Project Hotspot was able to call on outside assistance, says Highlands science teacher Pat Swanson.
Taranaki Regional Council was already involved and turned to Allen Stancliff, of the Taranaki Fish & Game Council. He suspected the wads were being carried down the Manganui River, which flows into the Waitara River, and then out to sea.
There’s a gun club on the Manganui and some of its
I also have to find the money to pay salaries and buy everything the students need, like petri-dishes, tubes and chemicals.
‘‘I’ve discovered that kids are very effective advocates. I’m proud of them.’’ Pat Swanson
‘‘traps’’ – or shooting ranges – are on the riverbank. Wads could easily have been shot out over the river and fallen into the water and been carried down to the coast.
To test this idea, privately owned company MetOcean Solutions was called on for its expertise in modelling and oceanography.
If the wads were entering the sea at the Waitara River mouth, then well-observed currents would deposit them on beaches in predictable places.
‘‘There’s a number of reasons stuff washes ashore in certain places,’’ says Mariana Horigome, the oceanographer who worked on the project. ‘‘The wind and currents are the drivers, but the coastal aspect and shoreline profile also has to be right for objects such as the plastic wads to beach and not get refloated on the next tide.’’
She ran the model – computer software – and sure enough it showed the wads ‘‘spread widely to locations north and south of New Plymouth, nicely replicating where the wads had been found’’ by the students.
‘‘It was great to get some help determining where the plastic came from,’’ says Dr Emily Roberts, of Taranaki Regional Council. ‘‘The modelling confirmed our suspicions.’’
Most of this happened in 2016 but was barely reported. New generations of students are now carrying on with similar work, and 27 Highlands students, plus teacher Swanson won an award from the regional council, for studying more plastic litter on regional beaches.
Among other plastics, they found small numbers of glow sticks used by the fishing industry. The disposable plastic lights are attached to long-line fishing gear and attract fish to bait.
They can fall off or get dumped and some wash up in Taranaki. Students were tracing the origins of the glow sticks, which might have been transported thousands of kilometres.
The class had also engaged with the New Zealand fishing industry. ‘‘I’ve discovered that kids are very effective advocates,’’ Swanson says. ‘‘I’m proud of them.’’
The gun club was switching to biodegradable wads.