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Indirect costs: the perverse consequences of New Zealand’s Research Overheads System
No full textAotearoa New Zealand prides itself on achieving remarkable outcomes with limited resources and embraces a national identity rooted in innovation, resilience, and efficiency. But even number-8 wire can snap. As newly appointed academics navigating the country's research landscape, we have encountered a funding system stretched beyond its limits - one that threatens the integrity and sustainability of the research it is meant to support. Here, we argue that a central issue in the current system is Aotearoa's heavy reliance on indirect cost recovery - or "overheads" - to fund core institutional functions. We explore how this internationally anomalous system undermines research excellence by incentivizing budget-driven project design, fragmenting researchers' time, obstructing career development for early career researchers, and destabilizing institutional budgets through volatile, grant-dependent income. At a time when colleagues in Public Research Organizations - formerly Crown Research Institutes - face job insecurity and uncertainty, we feel obligated to speak out, in line with our role as the "critic and conscience of society" (Education and Training Act, 2022). As the nation restructures its public research system, we argue that core institutional funding must be decoupled from competitive research grants, which should be dedicated to supporting the direct costs of research
Rethinking freshwater translocation policy and practice in Aotearoa New Zealand
No full textThere is growing interest in translocating freshwater fish and invertebrates for conservation and
customary purposes. However, freshwater translocations in Aotearoa | New Zealand are complicated by
limited access to scientific and technical guidance, fragmentary governance, and ongoing marginalisation of
Indigenous rights and knowledge. In this paper, we review the past and present state of freshwater translocations
in Aotearoa | New Zealand to identify key challenges for policy and practice. We reflect on two case studies:
translocations of toitoi (common bully Gobiomorphus cotidianus) and kākahi (freshwater mussel Echyridella
spp.) at Zealandia Te Māra a Tāne in the Wellington region, and an initiative led by Hokonui Rūnanga to captive
breed and translocate kanakana (pouched lamprey Geotria australis) in Murihiku | Southland. Drawing from
these experiences, we outline how policy, practice, and research could support more participatory and evidence-informed freshwater translocations
Who is the language policy for? Translation discrepancies and their implications to (dis)trust
Full text linkThis paper investigates the impact of language policy translation as a discursive action on historical and political mechanisms of trust within the context of Indigenous language revitalization in Taiwan. Combining a critical discourse studies approach and translation theories, we examine the translation discrepancies between the Chinese source text and the English translation of Tawain’s Indigenous Language Development Act (2017). We focus on the analysis of the interpersonal meanings conveyed by two Chinese modal verbs (ying/應 and de/得), aiming to elucidate how Taiwan’s Government positions itself within both language versions. The findings suggest that the government constructs itself as more actively responsible for the Indigenous language development in the English version. This strategic move reflects the government’s commitment to enhancing Taiwan’s international reputation as the English version is meant for global audiences. Considering language policy is inherently ideological with the government’s political intentions, we discuss the implication of distrust created by the translation discrepancy. This study highlights that language policy translation can be recontextualized to suit a government’s political agendas and ideological appropriations