BIOLOGICAL HERITAGE UPDATE
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Update from Andrea Byrom, Challenge Director
Kia ora koutou
Contestable funding round: when do we get the news?
Thank you to everyone who submitted proposals into the Challenge’s Innovation & Incubation round. We received 111 proposals from 18 organisations, for a total of $44.5 million (with up to $3.8 million available). We now have some tough choices to make. A team of 12 evaluators has been working hard evaluating proposals against the criteria we laid out in the Call for Proposals. The Challenge’s Support Team has also played a major role behind the scenes, organising and randomising proposals, and collating the evaluators’ responses. Decisions will be communicated to everyone by Friday 5 August.
Given the number of proposals submitted, in addition to the Challenge’s SLG, we commandeered five ‘external’ reviewers – people we knew were not bidding into the round, but who are experienced at evaluating Marsden and MBIE proposals. I would like to thank Clive Howard-Williams (NIWA); Jamie Ataria (Cawthron Institute and BioProtection Centre at Lincoln University, and member of the Challenge’s Kāhui Māori); Bill Lee (Landcare Research, University of Auckland, and University of Otago); Neil Gemmell (University of Otago); and Stephen Goldson (AgResearch, Chair of the Challenge’s International Science Advisory Panel, and advisor to the Office of the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor). These individuals have been working evenings and weekends to complete evaluation on time.
I’d like to comment about peer review. You may have noticed a recent article in Nature about how ‘unscientific’ peer review is. Whatever your perspective, I can say that all our reviewers were extremely thorough and professional, and I am hugely grateful not only for their time, but for the robustness they have brought to the process. The Challenge is in the process of appointing an International Science Advisory Panel for future peer-review of all Challenge projects. I’ll provide more detail in the next newsletter.
Predator-Free New Zealand announcement
We were very excited to see that the government has added $28 million to the Department of Conservation’s budget to support Predator Free initiatives. This includes funding for research, which will complement the Challenge-funded project ‘High-Tech Solutions for Small Mammal Pests’ (to be led by the University of Auckland), which was approved by our Governance Group at their meeting in June. Invasive mammal predators are one of the top threats to New Zealand’s native flora and fauna, and the Challenge is coordinating a number of initiatives to support research in this area. While our primary focus will be on longer-term, stretch science solutions to this problem, we will also support a ‘collective’ of investors into near-term small mammal research targeting landscape-scale solutions to the predator problem, including the Department of Conservation, Zero Invasive Predators, and  OSPRI, with aligned funding from Landcare Research, Plant and Food Research, and Auckland, Otago, Victoria and Massey Universities. We’re also delighted to be partnering with Landcare Research, our Challenge Host and one of the main research providers, to support the Cape to City initiative in Hawkes Bay, an exemplar of landscape-scale predator control across thousands of hectares of pastoral, horticultural, conservation and urban land in Hawkes Bay.
Read the Challenge's response to the government's announcement.
Landcare Research CEO Richard Gordon, and Challenge Director, Dr Andrea Byrom, at Zealandia yesterday for the big announcement by the PM
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Public Engagement Guidelines for Researchers, Scholars and Scientists
I notice that the Royal Society of New Zealand last week released its Public Engagement Guidelines for Researchers, Scholars and Scientists. The guidelines received little fanfare, yet they are probably one of the more important documents to check out if you’re interested in public engagement, getting your work out to a wider audience, and in the role that science can play in society. I got a bit interested in this because I was recently appointed to the Board of the Science Media Centre. I’m hoping in that role that I can help connect scientists with the public, and seek creative ways to get those stories out there. Check out the SMC website if you don’t know much about it – they are available to help scientists to connect with media in safe and effective ways, and they have some great tools to help you better understand how you can crack into the hectic pace of a media newsroom and get your work noticed.
Brexit: implications for research funding and environmental outcomes
On the international front, I’ve been completely fascinated by Brexit. I’m a bit of a political junkie, but I’ll keep my opinions to myself. However, what is interesting is the myriad of comments on the potential impacts on scientific endeavour and on research funding when Britain leaves the EU. This ranges from concerns about Britain’s status as a scientific superpower, the feeling that science and scientists will be forgotten in the fray, concerns that the British government is unwilling or uninterested in shoring up funds previously provided by the EU, to free movement of researchers between Britain and the EU, availability of EU research funding to British researchers, the potential long-term impacts on international collaborations, and opinion about how the scientific community should respond, including a response from the British Ecological Society. It goes on.
I’ve also been interested to see concerns about the potential environmental impacts of Brexit, with some expressing concern that environmental health will decline if Britain is not subject to the same rigorous standards as when it was a member of the EU, especially given the global scale at which environmental processes play out. There are also glimmers of hope amongst the nay-sayers. It will be fascinating to see how all this plays out. If you’re interested in this topic, try Googling ‘research and science implications of Brexit’ or ‘environmental implications of Brexit’ to find many more excellent articles online.
Save the dates: Challenge Conference!
We are planning our first science conference, 8–10 May 2017. Save the dates now – more details to come.
Ngā mihi nui,
Andrea
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From the newsfeed
Andrea Byrom on RNZ: science challenges and pests
Challenge Director Andrea Byrom discusses science challenges and pests with Kim Hill on RNZ. Listen to the interview online.
Recent Social Licence to Operate (SLO) workshop
The Biological Heritage National Science Challenge is well aware that the concept of social licence to operate (SLO) is an important underlying consideration which influences our work and how it is taken up by our industry and community partners. Equally we appreciate that SLO emerges from an underlying two-way communication process between a myriad of stakeholder groups.
A workshop on SLO was held in Wellington on the 16th of May 2016 and began with two guest speakers, James Baines and Dr Katharina Ruckstuhl.
For more information on the SLO workshop, and to watch the guest speaker presentations, visit the Challenge website.
For regular postings of information and upcoming events, see the newsfeed on the Challenge home page.
If you have upcoming events you’d like us to include, contact Glenda Lewis at glendajanelewis@gmail.com.
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For more information
Visit our website: www.biologicalheritage.nz
Or email Challenge support staff: support@biologicalheritage.nz
Biological Heritage Updates come out intermittently, and a full list of back issues is available.
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