Catalyst Fund

The Catalyst Fund supports activities that initiate, develop and foster collaborations which take advantage of international science and innovation for New Zealand’s benefit.

International science and innovation connectivity is a key contributor to achieving the vision of the National Statement of Science Investment, providing an opportunity to drive increasing excellence and the potential for impact of New Zealand science.

National Statement of Science Investment

The funding available

The Catalyst Fund consists of 4 funding streams:

  • Catalyst: Influence
  • Catalyst: Leaders
  • Catalyst: Seeding
  • Catalyst: Strategic

Outline of the funding framework: Advancing global science partnerships for NZ [PDF, 282 KB]

There is currently 1 Call for Proposals under the Strategic funding stream:

New Zealand-China Strategic Research Alliance 2022

A number of Catalyst Fund programmes are also administered by the Health Research Council and the Royal Society of New Zealand, on our behalf. Information about these programmes can be found on the Royal Society of New Zealand and the Health Research Council websites:

Recently funded initiatives (MBIE-administered)

Catalyst: Strategic

A.I. and Health Research in partnership with Soul Machines

New Zealand–Germany Green Hydrogen Research Programme

NZ–German Aerospace Centre Joint Research Programme 2021/22

New Zealand–Korea Joint Research Partnerships 2021

NZ-China Strategic Research Alliance 2020/21

NZ-Singapore Data Science Research Programme 

NZ-Singapore Future Foods Research Programme

A collaborative biomedical science research programme with China

The NZ-China Research Collaboration Centres

The MethaneSAT atmospheric science project

NZ-China Strategic Research Alliance 2019/20

The NZ-Australia Cyber Security Research Programme

Space 2019

NZ-Korea Joint Research Partnerships 2017

Catalyst: Influence

Committee for Freedom and Responsibility in Science

$600,000 over 5 years from June 2020 has been provided to the International Science Council to support the work (being led by the Royal Society of New Zealand Te Apārangi) of the Council’s Committee for Freedom and Responsibility in Science.

NZ-Australia Biobridge

The University of Auckland has received $180,000 to build a Biobridge to connect New Zealand and Australia’s healthtech ecosystems to effectively grow and scale their joint expertise globally. Austrade, the Consortium for Medical Device Technologies (CMDT) and the MedTech Centre of Research Excellence (MedTech CoRE) are involved.

Contact us

For more information, email internationalscience@mbie.govt.nz.

Last updated: 19 August 2022