Troy Baisden

@troybaisden.bsky.social

Personal views that may help environment, global change, climate, soil, water, isotopes, biogeoscience, math, community, complexity & random facts come together

MSc and PhD students are the workforce in the engine room of our public research system. They are very, very cheap labor by policy design. This talk about a 'cost blowout' is utter rubbish. We frown on company owners that charge people to get a job. We should be doing the same here. #NZPOL

Cost blowout puts fees for foreign PhD students under review

A blow-out in the cost of treating foreign PhD students like locals has prompted a rethink of the long-standing policy and a cap on spending next year.

rnz.co.nz

If you came here looking for answers on what MBIE's Transition Research fund is, we're trying to find out. On the face of it, the $84.8m per year replaces Marsden + Endeavour and more, which currently total 4 times this much?

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What worries me most about the directions of NZ's science reform is that it now matches closely what our extensive 2022 Te Ara Paerangi submission highlighted as 'what to avoid'. (1/3)

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We'll keep updating our concerns about the Prioritisation Report released last week, cutting 22% of the funding that currently looks after the future competitiveness of 60% or more of our exports, and cuts other important areas too. Today, I want to focus on something @lcsnz.bsky.social spotted.

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Heavens! All that confusing noise about AirNZ’s dire financial results, and then I see in the Economist that the dire state of British planning has Heathrow’s expansion in exponential cost overruns when it is already the second most expensive airport in the world. AUCKLAND IS THE MOST EXPENSIVE!

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FFS. Another year, another round of cuts to our public education and research system. This hurts everyone over time. Remember friends, never repeat the propaganda. It is not 'savings' it is cuts. And shame on ODT for repeating the 💩. They should know better. 🤡 #NZPOL

Mark Baxter@tartanperil.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Yet more cuts at #Otago University 😢😡 [Paywalled sorry - very welcome to post a link here if you find a non-paywalled version] www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin...

The reform is failing... (1/5) NZAS: "We have 500% overheads in some cases." Kathryn Ryan: "What??? Where is that happening?" NZAS: "In some of our PROs." NB: Overheads are a necessary part of institutions, but it means something needs fixing when they approach 10 times international norms.

NZAS - New Zealand Association of Scientists@nzscientists.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Co-President Dr Lucy Stewart spoke to Kathryn Ryan on Nine to Noon this morning about the continued failure of the government's science sector reforms to make necessary change (or provide desperately needed funding increases)