Poor funding drives researchers abroad

Press, 24 January 1986, Page 3

Poor funding drives researchers abroad

Researchers were leaving because of a lack of funds in New Zealand, said the director of the Medical Research Council, Dr J. V. Hodge, yesterday. Although many later returned to New Zealand there was a “growing and disturbing trend” for researchers to stay overseas, he said. "They don’t see opportunities here which are adequate to attract them back.”

Dr Hodge was responding to comments made by Professor Don Beaven to the finance committee of the Canterbury Hospital Board on Wednesday. He had told the committee that the non-renewal of a

research council grant for a technician involved in endocrine research was an example of the “restrictive and almost punitive” funding of medical research in the last five years. Dr Beaven said that medical research had now reached a “crisis in confidence.” The finance committee agreed to fund the research for three months from the underspent salaries and wages account for The Princess Margaret Hospital in the hope the council could pick up the tab again later. Dr Hodge said Professor Beaven’s comments

were “undoubtedly true.” About two-thirds of applications for council funds had to be turned down because it did not have the money. Although the Government’s $lO million grant to the council was indexed to inflation, growth .in medical research had outstripped increases in this, Dr Hodge said. The Government was in a difficult spot, said Dr Hodge. Medical research would be disadvantaged if it did not get more money but it was a question of how much research the community could afford.