In a report released on Wednesday, he says public funding of environmental research is fragmented, which makes it hard to respond to long-term environmental problems such as climate change, freshwater quality and biodiversity loss.
The report, a review of the funding and prioritisation of environmental research in New Zealand, asks what gets funded and why.
It outlines how the current funding allocation system for environmental research is disconnected from government priorities and proposes replacing it, in part, with a funding system solely focused on environmental research.
“No single agency is responsible for ensuring that our investment in environmental research spans the range of knowledge gaps that need to be filled,” Upton said.
“There should be a strong link between the priorities the Government articulates and where the funding is allocated.”
He says the Ministry for the Environment (MfE) needs to develop an environmental research strategy and dedicated long-term funding for environmental research should be ring-fenced – similar to money set aside for the Health Research Council of NZ – and explicitly linked to the research strategy.
Upton puts forward two models for distributing research funds, one of which would involve the establishment of a dedicated Environmental Research Council, the other promoting change through altering the roles of key government agencies and the skills available to them.
He says under both options all institutions with relevant expertise should be able to access available funds, whether they are negotiated or contestable, with funds allocated by people with strong experience in what environmental research entails, and matauranga Maori would be integrated in a way that allows both matauranga and science to prosper.
“The emphasis should be on collaboration, thereby providing a strong incentive for research institutions independent of central government, such as tertiary institutions and independent research organisations, to align their work with the proposed environmental research strategy,” he said.
Depending on how environmental research is defined it is estimated that in the 2018-19 financial year, total investment in it was between $427 million and $516m. Upton makes no comment about whether that investment is enough, as it falls outside the purpose of his review.
University of Auckland School of Biological sciences associate professor Cate Macinnis-Ng welcomes Upton’s report.
“Because the current funding model lacks central coordination, we have a large number of knowledge gaps in ecology and broader environmental sciences,” Macinnis-Ng said.
“In particular, we do not have long-term monitoring such as the long-term ecological research networks in Australia and the US, and our environmental databases and collections are chronically underfunded.
“We are therefore well behind other countries in detecting and understanding long-term environmental change processes such as climate change and biodiversity loss.”
She says although NZ has had many conservation successes, including around pest eradication, they are very patchy with uneven distribution of research funds.
University of Auckland School of Environment professor Mark Costello says the report is correct in pointing out the present system is not fit for purpose, and does not provide and manage national environmental and biodiversity data in sufficient breadth, depth and frequency to enable evidence-based management.
The study estimates just 10% of current national research funding goes to environmental research, which Costello says is appalling.
“NZ has one of the highest species extinctions rates of any country in the world; polluted rivers and lakes are overrun by introduced pests, and only fragments of natural habitats exist on some islands, remote fjords and in marine reserves,” Costello said.
“It is disappointing that no increase in funding is proposed, only its reorganisation. Yet our economy depends on this environment being healthy, both for ecotourism and reputation for dairy, wine and food production.”
NZ Association of Scientists president professor Troy Baisden says aspects of the recommendations resemble what some people consider one of the worst funding mechanisms: investments from 2005 to 2015 in ecological research supported the policy needs of operational agencies at the perceived expense of long-term science investment and excellence.
“Despite this, the already large investment by agencies such as regional councils raises the question of whether central government should better support work, particularly environmental monitoring, that is of national interest, but beyond immediate benefit to local ratepayers, or beyond a particular agency’s interests,” Baisden said.
“More broadly, the 2010 report of the CRI taskforce is not mentioned and should be: it highlighted that stable science institutions should have the leadership to manage and account for funds, and attract international advisory boards to review their success.”
Baisden says a return to such a simplified, stable public good model should be considered along with the recommendation for an Environmental Research Council, which was compared only to the status quo’s array of funding sources and governance mechanisms.
