Reflecting on our year of COVID-19 and the significance of diverse research ecosystems for our future
March 25 2021 marks a one-year milestone since Aotearoa New Zealand went into lockdown in response to containing the spread of COVID-19. New Zealand has done well over this year, recording a fraction of the infections and deaths of other countries per head of population. A key reason for this success has been the alignment between scientific advice and political leadership, the latter being willing to learn from medical and scientific experts.
The public has become familiar with terms previously only found in medical specialist areas including terms such as clusters, genome sequencing, aero dispersal, immunisation, and vaccination. We have also witnessed how scientists and those working with high-risk communities have adapted their areas of expertise, moving from mathematical modelling to epidemiological risk prediction and from microbiologists, to science communication across a wide range of disciplinary areas.
Most importantly, this past year has demonstrated how central science can be in dealing with public crises and how critical clear communication is to align public attitudes and behaviours with this scientific advice. As we slowly emerge from the COVID fog due to the success of our elimination strategy, tight border controls, and vaccination programme, we will have greater visibility of other crises such as climate change and inequality – for example, the persistence of child poverty and declining housing affordability. Pandemics, inequality, and climate change have complex interacting antecedents and will likely, therefore, require multi-faceted responses.
The Marsden Fund is deliberately aimed at maintaining and building a diverse research ecosystem in part because we cannot truly anticipate the nature of some of the future challenges we face and how research careers developed through these grants, may play a central role in building our research capability for this unclear future. This may mean innovations or new knowledge generated by highly specific work, or the cross-fertilisation of disciplinary areas, or the creation of new liminal spaces where traditional knowledge and science, for example, find new applications and understanding. As part of this, we are partnering with organisations such as Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga who, as the only Māori Centre of Research Excellence, play a leading role in indigenous knowledge internationally.
The Royal Society Te Apārangi is in a fortunate position of being a nexus for extraordinary depth and breadth of scientific and humanities expertise that could be more actively used to inform how we shape this future. We stretch across the research and innovation sector including Universities, CRIs, private, independent, and Iwi research institutions, Museums, galleries, and libraries, our constituent organisations including professional organisations, and with our branches and members. We are currently preparing a compact Strategic Plan that will hopefully position us for making a valuable contribution to dealing with these challenges. We look forward to engaging our stakeholders around a vision for this future.