13 JULY NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE 1841

2. The following guidelines are intended to ensure that all potential providers have access to funding and that funding allocations are contestable, in the context of the other criteria set out in this priority statement.

2.1 All science providers should have equal opportunities to put forward research proposals for consideration, and should be treated in an equal way in regard to the release of information. This should not prevent the Foundation from developing a long-term relationship with providers who have the capability to deliver outputs with long-term strategic benefits.

2.2 The criteria and processes used for making investment decisions should be transparent and applied uniformly to all proposals and providers in all outputs without bias or favour.

2.3 Any barriers which reflect the cultural or other background of applicants, particularly but not exclusively Maori, should where possible be removed by the Foundation, but not at the expense of compromising the fair application of selection criteria.

Assessment criteria

3. The primary criterion for the assessment of proposals shall be “fitness for purpose”, incorporating consideration of scientific or technological merit and the potential contribution to achieving the goals set out in the priority statement (relevance). However, in assessing “fitness for purpose”, the Foundation should set benchmarks for satisfactory standards of scientific or technological merit within each output, and so that selection between proposals of satisfactory merit is made primarily on the basis of relevance.

4. Proposals shall be required to describe the potential benefits of the research to New Zealand, in terms of the contribution to the achievement of the goals set out in this priority statement.

5. In assessing relevance to goals (or the benefits of proposed research) the Foundation shall as far as possible use defined methods, which are transparent and able to be applied in a consistent way across all proposals.

Science assets

6. Nationally important science assets, comprising databases and/or collections, are funded as a part of public good science and technology. In relation to these assets:

6.1 The Foundation shall be required to review the existing list of nationally important science assets to see whether it should be extended or modified. This review shall be carried out in consultation with science providers and the criteria used in the review should be published. The review should include consideration of all databases and collections which are in part or in whole supported through purchase of public good science and technology outputs. The review should be completed by 30 September 1996 and the results incorporated in research strategies for implementation as from the 1998/99 funding year.

6.2 For the existing list of nationally important assets and for the modified list when it is completed, identified assets are to be cross-referenced into the research strategies for the outputs from which they receive support.

6.3 In cases where insufficient funding is allocated to programmes to enable nationally important assets to be maintained, the Foundation may directly fund the maintenance of such assets as separate programmes.

Linkages between outputs and research outcomes

7. The linkages between Public Good Science and Technology outputs and the outcomes sought by the Government, should be given more direct expression through the application of the following guidelines:

7.1 All funded proposals are to include provision, as a separate objective where appropriate, for the transfer to users or into the public domain of the technology or scientific knowledge created by the research.

7.2 A process is to be set in place by the Foundation no later than 30 June 1996, which monitors and evaluates the contribution of the total package of programmes within each output to the achievement of the goals set out in this priority statement. The evaluation shall be published annually with the first evaluation to cover programmes funded in 1995/96 and with each evaluation to be published no later than 6 months after the completion of the financial year to which it refers.

Management of the overall process to improve effectiveness

8. Providers should be encouraged to submit proposals which demonstrate or promote interlinkages with other sources of research funding, where this helps to deliver science outputs with better fitness for purpose.

9. Where insufficient proposals of satisfactory “fitness for purpose” are received to meet the requirements of an output research strategy, and this is considered by the Foundation not to be due to a deficiency in the Government’s Priority Statement or in the research strategy itself, the Foundation should take the following steps:

9.1 Investigate the reasons for this insufficiency and then report to the Minister as part of the scheduled report on the funding round, on the extent and nature of the insufficiency and on how the Foundation proposes to overcome the insufficiency in future funding rounds.

9.2 The Foundation shall where appropriate consider proactive measures such as inviting tenders for defined pieces of work, or developing prescriptions for possible programmes, or other measures.

10. Collaborative and cross-output research should be encouraged where this contributes to the purchase of more effective science outputs. In particular:

10.1 The Foundation shall ensure that its assessment and selection processes do not disadvantage such research.

10.2 The number of cross-output and collaborative proposals funded as a proportion of the total of such proposals submitted shall be monitored.

10.3 Where, in the Foundation’s judgement, collaboration between two competing proposals is likely to lead to more effective research than the separate funding of the proposals, then the providers should be required to collaborate.

11. International networking should be recognised and promoted where it has the potential to result in the purchase of higher quality science outputs than would otherwise be the case. In particular:

11.1 Significant linkages with research to be carried out in other countries should be identified in all funded proposals.

11.2 The Foundation shall ensure that its assessment and selection processes do not disadvantage proposals which contain a significant international component.