Application and assessment information for the Endeavour Fund

Dr Prue Williams, General Manager

E ngā Mana, e ngā Reo, e rau Rangatira mā. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

Ko Prue Williams tōku ingoa. I am Prue Williams and I am the General Manager for the Science Investments part of MBIE and I would like to welcome you all here today to the 2022 Endeavour Fund Roadshow. It is good to have you with us.

Our mihi for today is Ko te tūmanako he āwhina i roto nei. Nā mātou o Hīkina Whakatutuki ki a koutou.

I have with me today two of my colleagues; Dr Max Kennedy, who is the manager of Contestable Investments at MBIE, and Sarah McDermott, Senior Investment Manager and part of the Endeavour Fund team.

And between all of us today we are going to cover some information that we think you’d need to know about the Endeavour Fund.

We will start off by talking about the context of the science system. Then I will hand over to Sarah and she will talk about the 2021 Endeavour Fund round which we have just completed. Then I will hand over to Max and he will talk about the 2022 Endeavour Fund round which just opened on the 1^st of October. He will also talk about the assessment and decision making processes and give you some tips for writing a really good bid. I will then come back in and talk about some other funding opportunities here at MBIE that you might be interested in.

At the end we will take time out to answer any questions that you might have.

So what I would encourage you to do, as you think of questions, is to put them in the Q&A function on this video recording and then we will cover those when we get to the end of the session. After today, we will be putting up a copy of this recording and we are recording the whole presentation including the Q&A sessions. We will put a copy up on our website, and we will also put up a copy of the slides that we are going to cover and a summary of the questions that are asked during the roadshows. This will be a really useful resource for you as you write your applications.

I’m going to start off by acknowledging that COVID is having a really major impact on the science system. And it is particularly challenging for those of you watching us from Auckland and other parts of the northern North Island at this time. We hope that you are doing well. Kia kaha.

I also want to acknowledge the tireless work that a number of our researchers and public health experts have been doing to support our COVID response. And also our science communicators – you are all doing a fantastic job.

Research has been, and continues to be, a really important part of New Zealand’s response to COVID and the global response to COVID.  It is also going to be really important for supporting our recovery from COVID going forward.

Research is also really important for supporting the Government’s ambitious goals in tackling long-standing social issues and transitioning to a low-emissions and carbon-resilient economy, and also for building a more knowledge-intensive New Zealand in the future. These are areas the Endeavour Fund can support research for.

This slide shows some of the current key initiatives for MBIE. The first one there you may have heard of. Some of you may have heard about a discussion document, or a green document, which will be released soon. This is looking at how we ensure the science system is well positioned for creating a future New Zealand that is more productive, more resilient and more diverse. And there will be an opportunity when this document comes out for you to give us your feedback on what you believe will be useful in the future and we look forward to hearing your submissions.

Another key area for NZ is increasing the impact of Vision Mātauranga. We are currently working on some new initiatives under the leadership of Dr Willy-John Martin who is our Pou Pūtaio. And this all contributes to a focus that we have at MBIE on equity, diversity and inclusion across all of our funds.

This diagram shows you the various current government funds and they are arranged on this graph. If you look at the y-axis, the ones down at the bottom of the graph are those funds which are decided by a competitive process. The funds at the top are more of a negotiated – devolved to particular organisations. If you look across the graph from the left hand end you’ve got the funds where investigators have the ideas for the research, through to the right where businesses have ideas for the research. Today we are talking about the Endeavour Fund – it is shaded in red down the bottom. This is our largest competitive fund which is focusing on mission-led research.

The Endeavour Fund really provides an open competitive process for selecting excellent research proposals. These proposals we select will provide really high potential impact across a range of economic, environment and social outcomes. The decision maker is the Science Board and they allocate the Endeavour funds as set out in the Gazette Notice. So it is really worthwhile to read the Gazette Notice alongside the Investment Plan and other assessment documents that we make available.

You can apply for two different types of funding in Endeavour. Smart Ideas are smaller projects which are really aimed at testing promising ideas. We are wanting to build up a diverse portfolio of innovative research ideas that can benefit New Zealand. The other type is the Research Programmes. These are our larger investments which support a lot of the research that we do in New Zealand.

We want you to particularly note that there is a size range for Smart Ideas and also a minimum size for Research Programmes. And this is really important because proposals that are outside this range will be considered to be ineligible so won’t be considered for funding.

All the proposals that come in for the Endeavour round are assessed for excellence and the best of these are assessed for impact. And Max will talk about how the assessment of the impact and excellence is carried out.

What I particularly wanted to talk about with this slide was to talk to you about the importance of considering the impact that your research might have. We really want you to think about what is going to happen as a result of the research that you do. Will the research help existing sectors? Will it help them to develop improved products or techniques, or better management? If that is the case, this is what we call Protect and Add Value type of impact. If the work is going to lead to an entirely new product, or techniques with more dramatic impact, something that is going to eliminate a problem or create an entirely new industry, then that is what we call the Transform impact category. We are looking for both of these in the Endeavour Fund.

And now I am going to hand over to Sarah who will talk to you about the 2021 Endeavour Fund round.

Sarah McDermott, Senior Investment Manager

Tēnā koutou.  Thank you very much for joining us in this presentation, and we particularly like to acknowledge the people who are joining in lockdown and also those with caregiving responsibilities. We really appreciate your participation. I'll be providing an overview of the 2021 investment round recently completed. New projects funded in this round just began on the first of October.

Applications received - the quality of applications continues to be very high, so this is a competitive fund. We've received 544 applications this year and, of those, 69 were successful. The success rate decreased to 13 percent overall.  We received a significant increase in the numbers of Smart Ideas applications received in 2021. This was because the Smart Ideas mechanism was cancelled in 2020, due to the COVID outbreak, and we encouraged people to reapply in 2021.   For Smart Ideas, the success rate was 12.5% from 416 Concepts.  This was compared to a higher rate of 17.3%, when we last ran the round, in the 2019 investment round.  For Research Programmes, we received the same number of proposals as in the previous year, although just noting that the average funding request was higher, so this does also have an impact on the numbers that we're able to fund. So in the round just gone, the average request increased to $2.2 million per year, compared to $1.9 million in 2020. That's for those that were assessed for Impact.

Here's some more information about success rates in the 2021 round.  For Research Programmes, we received 128 proposals.  We assessed 36 for Impact and, of these, 17 were funded. Just to note also we had a really good balance of 'Protect and Add Value' and 'Transform' proposals, very similar to our target.  So there was no difference in the success, depending on which category you selected there.

The success rates for Smart Ideas - we received 416 Smart Ideas Concepts, and of these 114 progressed to develop a full proposal, and 52 were funded.

This graph gives you a snapshot of the range of topics that are receiving investment. The classification system has recently been updated. So we're now using the 2020 ANZSRC version, which is the Australian New Zealand Standard Research Classifications. This graph shows you the whole Endeavour portfolio. It includes the 2021 round, plus previous investments.  And it relates to one financial year, so that's our current financial year we're in, which is 2021/2022. You can see from this graph that we still have some large or high-potential sectors that have relatively low levels of investment through the Endeavour Fund.

So that is one factor that the Science Board takes into account when they are applying a portfolio approach and making their investment decisions. Some other aspects that the Science Board takes into account, here's some recent examples. In recent years, there have been proposals declined due to size. If it's a high merit proposal, but the Science Board considers that another mix of proposals would provide better value, that is one reason why a proposal has been declined.   Decline might also occur due to concentration, and some examples from recent years are aquaculture, primary production more generally, and some ecosystems-related research in the environmental area if that is seen as an area of concentration. One area to also pay particular attention to is the investment signals, because preference given can be given to those proposals meeting the signals.  That is the signals which you'll hear about later, for example, transition to a low-carbon economy has been given preference in the past.

We just want to give you some information about our diversity efforts. MBIE has an aspiration for a vibrant and successful science and research system that reflects the diversity of New Zealand. We have a Diversity in Science Statement. And we are wanting to ensure that we capture the very best ideas through our Fund, and we also want to ensure to be able to check that we're not creating any barriers to success by our processes. Over time, we expect that our results will more closely reflect the general population, and that's in part due to the separate equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives. Just to bring to your attention that we don't use diversity information directly, or at all, in the decision making for the Endeavour Fund. So it's not a decision making criterion. We've got some more information online, you can see the link there.

We've been collecting this information since 2018, and we have it in relation to team members and assessors. That's for the 2019 round of Endeavour.  We've got quite patchy data, and we have lower completion rates compared to other funders, which we're trying to improve. It makes it difficult for us to give conclusive reporting and holistic reporting. And so therefore, we're really encouraging you if you're a researcher, to log into the IMS system as an individual and update your diversity data that's held in our system. And also for Research Offices or for leaders of large Research Programmes, we really encourage you to ask your team members and researchers to fill out this information so that we have more complete data sets.  

There is some information online this year, from the 2021 round. And you can see that women are science leaders, key researchers or key individuals, in at  least 70 percent of projects. And we have two Research Programmes and 11 Smart Ideas with a female science leader, which is similar levels to the applications we received.

People identifying as Māori are science leaders, key researchers or key individuals in at least 41% of funded projects. And six funded projects had a Māori science leader, which is slightly higher than the levels in the applications received. Now the actual figures are likely to be higher, because we have significant proportions where no diversity information is available, which is what we're trying to remedy by improvements this year.  Have a look at the MBIE website for more details - as well as gender and ethnicity, you can also see career stage and age, and that includes for assessors.

On Vision Mātauranga - assessors generally were quite impressed by the efforts that applicants have gone to, to give effect to Vision Mātauranga in proposals in the 2021 round. We're seeing improvements in assessor comments and in scoring in that area. So assessors considered that proposals gave effect to Vision Mātauranga in approximately 85% of Smart Ideas and 92% of Research Programmes. And in relation to these proposals, you can see that the assessors considered that Vision Mātauranga was addressed moderately well or very well in 90% of cases for Excellence for Smart Ideas and 81% for Impact. And similarly for Research Programmes, 85% of cases for Impact assessors.

I'll leave you with some thoughts about quintiles.  We quote quintiles in results letters, and we get quite a lot of interest and what they mean. Each quintile contains about 20% of applications. So then as well as that, all applications with the same score will go into the same quintile. So in the example here, which happens to be 2021 Smart Ideas scores at the final analysis, you can see a number of proposals that are coloured green here.  They're all the same score, so they just sit together and they will always be in the same quintile. Quintiles aren't used for decision making, but we provide them in the results letters so we can give applicants a feel for their relative ranking against the assessment criteria, and in comparison with the other proposals that are being assessed at that stage. So quintiles only relate to that stage and year, and also just to realise that they're based on the assessment scores, so against the assessment criteria.  And portfolio balancing, which the Science Board can apply, may override the quintile. So just to give you an example, Excellence assessment only very highly ranked proposals progress. In the 2021 round, there was 27 or 28% of Smart Ideas and Research Programmes that were assessed for Excellence, that progressed to the next stage. So only just over a quarter of proposals progressed to the second stage. And this graph, as I mentioned, shows the final scores that include both Excellence and Impact scores for Smart Ideas. Proposals were funded down to that green area, so into quintile three. So if you got through to this final stage, you've done very well, you're probably quintile one in the first stage. And this explains how you might end up in quintile three, four or five in the final analysis.

I'll hand over to Max Kennedy now to explain the 2022 round.

Dr Max Kennedy, Manager Contestable Investments

Kia ora everyone. I’ll explain to you now the upcoming round of the Endeavour Fund.

So the first thing to note is that the key documents that underpin all the information about the round. These are the Investment Plan, Gazette Notice, Call for Proposals and Assessment Guidelines – are all available on the MBIE website. It is worth getting into these and reading them. And in there you find all the information you need to conduct the round.

First up, let’s talk about what hasn’t changed for 2022. The first thing that hasn’t changed is the amount that we put into the fund, which is $57 million per annum, which is split $18 million for Smart Ideas and $39 million for Research Programmes, and that is per annum. The portfolio targets, for example, Protect and Add Value and Transform, all those ratios there, they haven’t changed. And also the exclusion for proposals that are the majority health, defence and expanding knowledge must be less than 50% of your proposal. The reason for that is there are funding sources available for those particular topic areas.

So what is changing for 2022? There is a range of things changing. We will go into details on each of those as we move along. There is the Investment Signals; the Vision Mātauranga information we request and the assessment of it; the target for the number of proposals that we want to fund; the ANZSRC codes; we are going to talk more about publishing team member details; there are a few changes in the profiling we request. And we would like to clarify what counts and doesn’t count in terms of government co-funding. And there is also some terminology changes about how we talk about impact.

So, let’s start with the Investment Signals. So, you need to cover all of these ones. Demonstrate excellent, highly-connected research with high potential for New Zealand. And that’s really about how good is the application.

And, secondly consider the potential of Māori people, knowledge and resources and reflect genuine fit-for-purpose approaches to do that. Be well-positioned in the wider domestic and international research context, and leverage additional value from this wider context.

So we want the best connections and the best team to work on your programmes. Should also, in addition to these, reflect government policy strategy and roadmaps where relevant. And linking up with a government policy strategy or roadmap is a great way to show that what you are doing is of relevance to New Zealand and where the government wants to go.

The Investment Plan states that we need more of these and so the Science Board will look for opportunities to fund in the following two areas. The first is “whose primary objective is to create new knowledge pathways to support the transition to a low-emissions and climate-resilient economy”.

The second one is around knowledge intensive industries. What we mean by knowledge intensive industry is characterised by workforces that are predominantly highly skilled, which have technology, tools and resources necessary to create higher value products and services.

So if you are in either of those two areas, they are certainly things that the Science Board will be looking to. In previous years these have been restricted to economic outcome areas where as now these signals apply across economic, environment and society. So make sure you take a look at those two.

There is a change to the amount of Vision Mātauranga information that we are requesting. Vision Mātauranga encourages partnership and is designed to inspire researchers to find innovative responses to opportunities, or solutions to issues and needs that are facing New Zealand.

So we’ve got new questions in the form: the percentage of the total personnel costs attributed to Māori; percentage of the project activity led or co-led by Māori; and the use of Mātauranga Māori and Kaupapa Māori in the project.

And this is really to show that you have the appropriate resources available in the project to give effect to the plans that you have for Vision Mātauranga.

There are a number of ways that you can give effect to Vision Mātauranga. So a very strong application may be Māori-led or co-led. Strong applications may have Māori researchers or traditional knowledge holders as part of the team. Strong applications enable Māori knowledge or may use Kaupapa Māori approaches or draw on Mātauranga Māori. And other applications may incorporate Māori principles or perspectives into the research.

Now, the nature of the project will determine your approach to Vision Mātauranga. And what is very important is that you go out and consider how you can give effect to Vision Mātauranga. But the response to it can be any of those across there and the Science Board will be looking to see that it is appropriate.

So how is Vision Mātauranga assessed? So what we have done this year is we have put Vision Mātauranga explicitly within each of the assessment criteria for the 2022 round.

So, within Science, that means recognising distinctive research, science and innovation contributions of Māori people, knowledge and resources. And that could include Mātauranga Māori.

The team has the appropriate Māori expertise for the project.

In the Benefit to New Zealand, we are looking to the extent to which the project has identified and evaluated the potential impacts for Māori.

And in the Implementation Pathway, whether there is sufficient input from Māori at the appropriate stages that will ensure that we will get effective implementation.

So, we have put in new regulations this round about the number of proposals that the Science Board should fund. And there is a new requirement that the Science Board should aim to fund a minimum of 49 Smart Ideas or 19 Research Programmes. So, if you can see and take the total for Research Programmes for example, if you see the amount of money that is being spent there by the minimum number of projects the Science Board will fund, it averages out at about $2 million per annum or about $10 million if you are going for five years. So, that gives you an average size that the Science Board will be looking at when they make their funding decisions. Now of course, you can put in larger, but the largest research proposals will be subject to the criteria of value by the Science Board. So, if you have a very big programme, you will come under extra scrutiny. As a result, the Science Board may choose to fund some smaller proposals if it considers that it offers better value. And we will get into what value means in a minute.

ANZSRC codes. We are using the new 2020 version of ANZSRC codes in this round. ANZSRC stands for Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification. And it is broken up into three related classifications. These are Type of Activity, Field of Research and Socio-economic Objective. And there was a review done in 2019 and the new classifications were released just in 2020.

So, the Science Board does use ANZSRC codes and it uses them to balance the mix of investments. And the codes it is looking at are the same ones Sarah just showed you on the bar graph as to which are in which place on our spread of investments. So, the important thing is that you ensure that the codes accurately match the programme content. So, we want the ANZSRC codes to really reflect what’s going on in the project. Usually, the Science Board is considering ANZSRC codes not up at the economic, environment and society level, but they are now going a bit lower down to that second level that you can see in the graph that Sarah has shown you.

OK. Profiling has changed a bit. Profiling has been simplified, with a focus on technologies of special interest. So, we want you now to declare any technologies of special interest that may be used as part of the research. So, these things might be emerging technologies or for some other reason that they are in there. They may be things like gene technology, live animal testing, working with children and vulnerable adults etc. So those ones we’ve used historically. There is a new one this year which is technologies that could have military or security applications. We’ll just go into that in a bit more detail.

So, technologies of special interests, what we are trying to do is to take measures to limit or prevent any direct or indirect harm that may result as a consequence of technologies of special interest being used in our investments. What you should note is that it doesn’t affect the scoring of your proposal. So, it is separate to that.

So, if you are in the area that we call dual use or potential military or security applications, and some examples of this might be object recognition, advanced materials, autonomous vehicles, satellites, things like that, these fall under the control of New Zealand Strategic Goods List on the MFAT website.

And New Zealand does control the export of these particular goods. Note that not all technologies are suitable to be included on the list. But some of these may remain in scope. Therefore, we ask researchers to consider the full possibility of dual use of whatever technology that you happen to be using.

So, if your research is either on that New Zealand Strategic Goods list, or could have potential military or security applications, it may mean that it needs protection around unauthorised protection or transfer, for example, protect and prevent the loss of IP. So, MBIE will contact you if that's the case, if the research is funded, and we continue to update that. But the important thing to realise is that this is something that happens after the research is funded, and it doesn't affect the scoring of your bids.

After the 2021 round, there were a number of people who were interested in the teams who were supported in the investments. So in 2022, we plan to proactively publish team member names for successful projects. So, we will be collecting that and publishing those after the successful candidates are known.

It's fine to have co-Science Leaders within a proposal. Often we hear that you can't have co-Science Leaders. But that's a bit of a myth. You can have co-Science Leaders on your applications. And so see the Call for Proposals for team member descriptors. Consider diversity as you're putting your team together, particularly of the Science Leader. Really, we're after the best team to undertake the work and that remains constant.

So to just give you an update on government co-funding, we'd like to clarify what counts and what doesn't count in terms of government co-funding. So, if government co-funding, or in fact co-funding from your organisation, has been given a grant, and that money was allocated for other purposes, not the purposes of your application, this cannot be used as co-funding in Endeavour proposals. You can't sort of count the money twice, so to speak, or have two lots of government money being used for the same project. However, where the government is an end user, and the money is going directly and solely into your Endeavour project, that co-funding is acceptable. It can be cash, it can be in-kind, and a range of things.

So with impact terminology, we have increasingly aligned the terminology with the MBIE’s results chain framework. And this was published in a paper which is available on our website called the Impact of Research position paper. And in here, we've aligned with that paper now. And we use the terms outcome and impact. So you'll see those used throughout the Investment Plan in the Gazette Notice. And in the diagram there you can see the results chain framework.

Okay, now for the dates. Here are the dates listed for Smart Ideas. The important thing to note is that 2nd November is the closing date for registration of Smart Ideas. And please note that this is mandatory. So if you don't register, you can't submit a Concept. So if you are thinking about submitting a Smart Ideas Concept, make sure you make that 2nd November deadline.

Same applies for Research Programmes. Again, registration is mandatory. So you have to register if you want to put in a proposal, and the cut-off date for registrations are 9th December.

So let's talk now about how projects are assessed and the decision-making processes.

So for assessing the proposals, it's a two stage process. We have Smart Ideas, where you submit a Concept. This goes to the Science Board, who make a decision on the excellence of that. Applications of the best are then invited to submit full proposals, which are then assessed in detail for excellence and impact.

For Research Programmes, there is only one submission − that is submitting a full proposal, which is first assessed for excellence and then a smaller number make it through for impact assessment prior to final decision making. 

So Smart Ideas, let's look at how the criteria are applied to Smart Ideas. So, Concepts are assessed for excellence only, whereas full proposals are again assessed for excellence and impact concurrently. Here’s the weightings on the excellence and the impact criteria. And what you can see in Smart Ideas, which is a mechanism that's designed to bring in the flush of new ideas into the system, is that there is a high weighting on the science −  50% − and lesser weighting on the other criteria. 

With Research Programmes, one proposal is submitted. And we've got a two-stage assessment process. Here you can see the weightings are equally spread amongst all the four sub-criteria. With Research Programmes, there is an additional amount of assessment that goes on after those excellence and impact have been assessed. And this is that the Science Board will use the Portfolio Approach when they make their funding decisions. And I'll go into what that means.

So in Smart Ideas, the Science Board is looking at the best proposals on a ranked order list, which is based on the median scores from the assessors. And then they will make their selection going down the ranked list. For Research Programmes, they will consider the ranked order list via programs having sufficient merit and then they will take the Portfolio Approach. They will consider portfolio targets and they will consider the impact categories Transform and Protect and Add Value.

So, what does the Portfolio Approach mean? This is what the Science Board uses here. Each proposal has sufficient merit against impact and excellence. And what this means is that you have high scores against the criteria and when those are combined together you will then have a high merit. So, your merit has to be sufficient for the Science Board to want to fund you.

Secondly, they will consider the overall mix of investments and whether the investment meets the Investment Signals in the Investment Plan. And those are the signals that I've outlined earlier and the overall mix of investments are what they're considering in terms of ANZSRC codes in the graph that Sarah showed you earlier. They will consider the value offered by the largest Research Programme proposals. And I'll go into what exactly value means in a second. They're looking to avoid duplication and excessive concentration, and they are interested in meeting policy objectives, including the Vision Mātauranga policy.

Let’s look at value, concentration and duplication. So when people talk about value, they think of value for money − so what is the total amount of value created per dollar put into the research? And that is not the value that the Science Board is looking at. So it's not that.

The way that the Science Board looks at value is, it says, “I can fund one incredibly large programme which uses up a lot of the money, or I can fund a smaller number of Research Programmes and smaller Research Programmes, and I can get more value out of the total portfolio”.

Large proposals need to be of the highest quality to receive investment. And large proposals get particular attention from the Science Board. So that's the advice that we have been given is, if you're a large proposal, it has to be of the highest quality.

In terms of concentration, the Science Board is looking at sectors of the existing portfolio with a high investment. So check out that SEO chart Sarah showed earlier and you can see the areas of high investment. And they're also looking for duplication. So, they don't want to pay to do identical research in two different applications.

Now here are some of the things to consider when you put an application together.

So first up, consider what are the needs that I'm trying to fulfil by this application? So the Endeavour Fund is a mission-led fund. It's about transforming New Zealand's future. And that's a good way to think about your application.

So, design your project with the end in mind. Work backwards from the desired impact that you're trying to create. And one of the things that I encourage applicants to think of is, how will your project proposal change the lives of New Zealanders? And if you can think of a good answer to that question, you're off to a flying start to work out impact, and put together your impact case followed by excellence.

Consider the Investment Signals for the fund and priorities that are signaled in government strategies. That will ensure that you're really aligned with where the Science Board and Government wishes to go. Co-design with end users and start early with those end-user or next-user interactions, so that they can feel real partners and have influence over your program. So that's really a good way to approach programme development. Certainly consider the extent to which you are giving effect to Vision Mātauranga.  Some topics and solutions have more potential than others. And that's okay. What's very important is that the way you treat Vision Mātauranga is appropriate to the extent to which you give effect to Vision Mātauranga. Think early about how to position the proposal, which industries, which sectors are you targeting, and which ANZSRC codes best describe and characterise your proposal.

In terms of describing impact, the recommendation I give is to think broadly about benefits to New Zealand. Any project that's developed will have a range and a spread of benefits. So consider those spillover benefits. Look at all the Investment Signals and see how you address those, and if you're addressing any of the signals that the Science Board is looking to invest more in. Key government signals this year are to reduce emissions, address climate resilience, and build knowledge-intensive industries. So, the Science Board is particularly keen to fund proposals in these areas.

Co-funding is not mandatory, which means you don't have to have it. But potentially if you're quite close to market, it's a really good way of demonstrating that actually, yes, your end users are right behind you. Ensure the work programme has activities that allow impact to be delivered. And so you think about your implementation pathway and how that will work. Avoid hockey-stick deliverables. And what I mean by this is that you have Critical Steps that are spread across the Work Programme, and one Critical Step per Research Aim per year. So that this is really so that you can see good progress as you go along, rather than having a project that was designed to go completely along and then all of a sudden, everything turns up at the end.

So, what about science excellence? Be specific to show which part of your proposal is stretchy. So the Endeavour Fund is looking for stretchy research. And by stretchy research, we mean things that are leading the field, it might change thinking within a field, it might be recognised as world leading. So, you should have a part of the proposal that is. And rather than let the assessors guess which part of your proposal is stretchy, I recommend that you specifically say the stretchy bits of my proposal are x, y, and z. So then you've got the assessors to focus in on those bits, which will help them determine the stretchiness of your proposal. The other thing to note is that not all parts of the proposal need to be stretchy. So you can have some really good science in there that is not stretchy. But as long as you've got some stretchy bits in there, that's good.

Give sufficient details so assessors can understand your thinking. Often, you're so familiar with the process, that you make assumptions. And so it's quite good actually to get someone who has not been involved in putting the proposal together to have a read of it, and just see if you can convince them with your level of detail in your thinking in your proposal. And that can be a very good way to get some good feedback and improve your programme.

Manage your risk. If you're doing stretchy science, and you're pushing the boundaries, then that will come with risk. So what the assessors don't like to see is when there is no plan to manage that risk. So convince your assessors that yes, you're taking some risks, but those risks are actually quite well managed. Build the best team with the right mix of skills, researchers, end users. Consider diversity in capability development. New Zealand is unusual in some respects in that 50% of the funding can be used to fund off-shore collaborators. But you can’t use it to fund them to do their own research in their own country. You are funding them to do research on this application and New Zealand's issues or opportunities.

So there are a few small things that is good to get right with a new proposal, makes it easier for assessors and the Science Board. The first one is the Executive Summary. It's the key go-to place. If you're an assessor or you're a Science Board, when you get the proposal for the first time, you're going to go straight to the Executive Summary. And that's really going to form the first impression of your proposal. So I recommend that you split it into the four assessment criteria so that when assessors read that summary, they can say, “Oh, this is exactly how they are addressing the four criteria” − makes their job a bit easier.

It's often harder to write a small amount than a large amount. So limit your words and use them wisely. And this applies to all parts of the application. And we have seen a trend in recent years where people try to fit in more words by putting them into pictures. So please don't do that. We want to make sure that the system is fair and equitable for everyone. So don't have huge chunks of text within your pictures.

The Public Statement is another area that people sometimes overlook or don't put that much effort into. So, imagine you're successful, write what you would like the media and public to know about your project. Because MBIE does take these Public Statements and we can release them at any time when a member of the public requests that information. So, absolutely important that you don't include any commercially sensitive information in it. And it's often a good idea to get someone from Comms to have a look at it, to make sure that it's really communicating what you want to say.

Select your profiling codes with care to ensure that they're accurate. We want to make sure that they're as accurate as possible for use in eligibility and portfolio balancing. The significance to Māori profiling also helps with assessor selection. So there is a part of the proposal that you can tick in there to show that it's greater than 50% Māori-led or Kaupapa Māori. And when this is the case, we will make sure that we are selecting assessors who have competence in those areas.

Now over to Prue to tell you about some of the other opportunities that MBIE has for investment.

Dr Prue Williams, General Manager

Thank you Max. And just to let you know that we are nearly to the end of the slides and the information we have prepared for you. So this might be a good time to start to think about those questions that you would like us to answer. And so just to remind you, please to fill out the Q&A function to ask your question. And we've got a broader group of MBIE people here that can answer your question. So, please feel free to ask some questions so we can answer those.

So as Max said, I’ll just talk a little bit about some other funding opportunities in case they're of interest to you.

Our Vision Mātauranga Capability Fund is currently open for proposals and these are due on 11 November, so you might want to have a look at this fund.

We have also recently announced new funding to set up an Infectious Diseases research platform. This is one of our Strategic Science Investment funds. And it is specifically thinking about developing a capability in infectious diseases research for the future, building on what our experiences have been in responding to COVID and thinking about what research capability should we have in the future. We are going to start that investment by calling for a host who will be able to host the platform. So look out on our website for a call to host the platform. And then, once the host has been selected, there will then be a subsequent process of identifying what the research is that that platform will invest in to develop capability for the future.

If you want to find out about these investments or any of our other investments then the MBIE website is a good place to go for more information. You can also subscribe to our e-newsletter which will be sent out to you when there’s any updates, so another way to keep in touch with our funds.

I just also want to remind you that MBIE invests in a series of research infrastructure, which is important for carrying out research to New Zealand. And if you are wanting to use any of this research infrastructure to support your Endeavour project, please think about following up on some of the linkages on the screen here. We invest in a range of things and would really like you to use them in your project so that you can deliver excellent research.

If you want to know more about the Endeavour Fund, then please feel free to contact us. We can explain the process just as we have today. And we can also help you with the use of our portal and resolve any problems that you have in the portal. What we cannot do, though, is interpret the call for proposals or give you specific advice. So if you come to us and say, “I'm thinking about putting a proposal on this topic, what do you think for this as an idea? Will it get funded?” We can't provide you with advice on it. We will only explain the process. Again, as I said, help you with portal issues.

So here's how you can contact us. There's an email for the Endeavour Fund. There's also some contact details here about the portal or about the actual process of submitting an application. There is an email, there’s a phone number. And as I said, the MBIE website is also a really good source of information and we encourage you to go there.