New Zealand ‘challenges’ get budget boost

The government of New Zealand has allocated NZ$133.5 million over the next four years to 10 “national science challenges”.

The challenges were announced along with a $73.5m-top-up allocation for work related to the ten challenges as part of New Zealand’s 2013 budget. That money tops up a 2012 national science challenges budget of $60m, which was announced before the challenges were selected.

The government released a statement saying that it found the national science challenges system to be working well, and had therefore decided that a bigger budget is needed to make sure the challenges achieve the necessary impact.