Research Programmes Call for Proposals 2024 investment round - Endeavour Fund

[Visual: The branding for MBIE is used. The primary image is of a female scientist in a lab coat examining a plant.]

Danette Olsen: Nau mai, haere mai. Kia ora. Welcome to the third of the 2024 Endeavour investment round roadshows. I'm Danette Olsen. I'm the General Manager of Science System Investment and Performance branch here at MBIE, and it's great to have you here online today to hear about the Endeavour Fund.

Gonna kick off with the MBIE Karakia

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Tāwhia tō mana kia mau, kia māia.

Ka huri taku aro ki te pae kahurangi, kei reira te oranga mōku,

Mā mahi tahi, ka ora, ka puāwai

Ā mātau mahi katoa, ka pono, ka tika,

TIHEI MAURI ORA

[Visual: Slide showing the agenda for the Roadshow]

So today, we've got a few speakers to share with you different aspects of the Endeavour Fund. I'll talk generally about the fund and the decision-making process. Willy-John will talk about Vision Mātauranga, and then we'll have Mel talking around the 2023 round wrap up. And Gabby’s going to move on to the 24 round, and then finally, you'll hear from Alan, who's going to share with you tips for applicants to help you prepare the proposals.

We're really happy to take questions. Please use the Q&A function. Type those in throughout the webinar. Simple questions we’ll answer online and then the ones that have more complex answers, or that we think everyone might want to know the answer to we'll do at the end in a live session.

In the unlikely event emergency, should the system pause for a moment, or if we have any sort of IT issues, just hold fire, we'll be sorting it out quickly in the background and we’ll be back online in a few seconds.

[Visual: We see a slide defining the purpose of the Endeavour Fund – as Danette explains]

So what is the Endeavour Fund?

The Endeavour Fund has been established to support excellent research with potential to positively transform New Zealand's economy, environment, and society, and to give effect to the Vision Mātauranga policy.

[Visual: Colourful diagram showing the relative position of The Endeavour Fund to all RS&I science investment.]

This diagram shows you where the Endeavour Fund sits within the science and innovation ecosystem. It sits between investigator led and mission lead research is a little bit of a mixture, and that kind of reflects the 2 funding instruments, Smart Ideas and Research Programmes. And it's one of our what is our largest competitive contestable fund. So it's set up for contest of best idea. And that's a strong component of the decision making process.

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So 2 elements to Endeavour. The first is Smart Ideas. So these are smaller investments, and they're intended to catalyse promising innovative research ideas with a lot of potential for benefit to New Zealand. Within those outcoming areas I described earlier.

They can be funded for 2 or 3 years, and they need to be between 400,000 and a million. So any proposals that are outside that range will be deemed ineligible.

Research Programmes are much larger investments, and they're intended to support ambitious, excellent, well-defined research ideas that have credible and high potential to transfer positively transform New Zealand's future. They can be for 3, 4, or 5 years, and there's a minimum of 500,000 per year, and there's no upper limit. However, I will talk a little bit about how size can be a constraint in the portfolio balance further along in this presentation.

So how are decisions about Endeavour made?

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So the Endeavour decisions are made by the Science Board. So the Science Board is an independent body made up of researchers from across the research science and innovation system, reflecting a range of backgrounds, positions within their career, trajectory and disciplines. And so we bring together these experts to consider all the Smart Idea proposals and all the Research Programmes and other final decision maker.

[Visual: Cartoon-like black outline of The Beehive on the bottom right hand side of the screen. Above this is a screenshot of the heading from the 2024 Gazette Notice for The Endeavour Fund.]

So how do they go about making their decisions? So they're instructed to make decisions through a gazette notice that it's issued by the Minister of the day. And so this gives them their guidance for how they go about making decisions in the Endeavour round.

So for Smart Ideas. It typically invested the best proposals based on a rank order low. So that's the total median weighted score. And at least 49 proposals must be funded by the Science Board

For Research Programmes, they need to achieve sufficient merit. So that's based, again on a total medium weighted score. So here, first, we assess excellence, and then a number of proposals will get through the Excellence threshold, and then we will assess Impact. And then the Science Board will make investment decisions partially based on that, but also based on a portfolio approach. And they have to fund at least 19 proposals, and that feeds into that portfolio balancing approach that they take, and we'll hear more about that shortly.

[Visual: Screenshot of the cover page of The Endeavour Fund Investment page and one page of the Investment Plan showing the portfolio targets.]

So we have an investment plan for Endeavour that's approved by the Minister. And again, this also constrains the Science Board's decision making. So here of the total funds invested in Endeavour, 20% of those funds we aim to invest in Smart Ideas and around 80% in Research Programmes. We aim to fund approximately 20% in the Protect and Add Value category and 50% in the Transform Impact category. Now that those 2 criteria there only apply to Research Programmes.

And we need to try and balance across economic, environmental and societal research outcomes. So 70, 25 and 5. So these are guidance to the Science Board. They don't have to stick to these rigidly, but it's where we try to get the portfolio to balance around these different aspects.

Science Board also needs to consider some General Signals when making decisions. So they need to ensure that the research portfolio demonstrates excellent, highly connected research for the potential for impact

Need to consider potential of Māori people knowledge and resources. And it needs to reflect genuine, fit for purpose approaches to enabling that potential. The research needs to be well positioned in the wider domestic and international research context. And it needs to leverage additional value from the wider RS&I community.

And the research should reflect Government policy strategy and the roadmaps where they are relevant. These signals apply all areas, whether their economic environment or societal outcome oriented.

The Science Board needs to consider how the overall mix of investments meet these Investment Signals in the Investment Plan.

The Science Board also needs to look for proposals which respond to these specific signals that are issued by the Minister. So first of those is around new knowledge pathways to support the transition to a low emissions and climate resilient economy and the second relates to supporting new or existing industries to be knowledge intensive.

The Science Board also needs to consider the value offered by the largest Research Programmes proposals. So large proposals need to be of the highest quality to receive investment as a Science Board play pays particular attention to them.

An assessment of the value of funding, for example, might have the Science Board, considering 2 small proposals rather than one large proposal.

And this is linked to the 19 Research Programmes requirement. That was quite a constraint on this use investment process, and we'll hear more about that soon. The Science Board also needs to consider duplication or concentration in the portfolio. So we need to avoid excessive duplication or concentration; and to ensure that we are funding a broad range of research across the system.

And finally, research needs to meet policy objectives, including Vision Mātauranga policy. And I'll now hand over to Willy-John who’ll talk this through.

Willy-John Martin: Tēnā koutou katoa. Ko Willy-John Martin toku ingoa. I am the Director, Māori Research, Science & Innovation here at MBIE.

Many of you will be familiar with the Vision Mātauranga policy. It's been with us now for some 18 years, and those who have applied in the past will know some of the ins and outs of it, but for those who are new to applying, to Endeavour, and for those who are joining us from now from overseas Vision Mātauranga is a policy that seeks to find innovative opportunities and solutions through the use and the investment in Māori knowledge resources and people.

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A really important part of this is that that there's no one way to do it, and we also expect there to be a range of approaches taken at a range of levels from strong all the way down to more lighter. So an example of very strong applications are those that have that are Māori-led or co-led with Māori . They tend to be really strong in the areas of Vision Mātauranga.

Then there are other ways of having a strong application in this area, too. For instance, if there are Māori researchers as part of the team or the project works really closely with Māori communities or businesses or interest groups, or essentially are part of the work itself.

Other strong applications might use Māori knowledge and Māori methodologies of research, like kaupapa Māori . And it's also important to note that often when our assessors look at the applications that if there's a lot of Māori knowledge there, they usually expect there to be a lot of Māori expertise on board as well.

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But other applications can be more on the lighter side more, because, because some of the work might take a long time to lead to strong outputs that are important to Māori communities, or that just take a long time to work through either way. And so we kind of see that that whole range, and in many different ways.

Something to help our assessors understand the dimensions of Vision Mātauranga that your application is speaking to. As through these questions, that you'll find through your application process. One thing that we ask is the percentage of total personnel costs that attributed to Māori project leaders. This project members sorry. And this is because of that people part helps us understand our Vision Mātauranga, Māori People part. This helps us understand what type of expertise you have there, and there's no there's no way you must do it. You don't have to have a particular percentage of personnel cost. It has to be right sized to the application that you are writing.

So the next thing we often ask is around the percentage of the application that's led or co-led, and that can be in many ways as more with Māori as designers or its leaders or kaitiaki. So there are. And again, there's no one way to do this and no one way you must do it. And the another thing we ask about is the use of Mātauranga Māori and Kaupapa Māori in the project. So this is more in the Māori knowledge area. And again, there's no one way to do it. There's no one thing you must do. What is really important is that, is that when you design your proposal and submit your application, that these elements speak to the way you've written your proposal, and so assessors will look at at what you've said related to Vision Mātauranga, and they tend to look at these. How you've answered these questions, to look about, just to determine whether they align appropriately.

So good luck and tēnā koutou. I'll now pass this over to Melanie, who will take you through the results of the most recent Endeavour round.

Melanie Tomitz: Thank you, Willy-John and Kia ora koutou, and my name is Melanie Tomintz. I'm a Senior Investment Manager in the contestable team here in MBIE. And the Endeavour Fund lead to get out with my colleague Gabby, who will speak to you later. So I will talk you through a little bit, what happened in the 2023 round give you some numbers around and the applications that we have received and the success rates. And I will also talk you through about our data that we collect around diversity information and as well as the information for feedback that we will that we are giving to you at the end of the rounds.

So overall, I'm really pleased. To let you know that also for the 2023 round we have received a lot of applications that really had a high quality. So it's really great to see over the years that the quality remains really high. So thank you for that. In 2023 we have received 422 proposals, all together.

316 Smart Ideas and 106 and Research Programmes across 38 organizations. When we look at the average size and the range of the Research Programmes itself, then we receive proposals that ask for a minimum of 0 point 5 million per annum for the program, and up to 5.6 million per annum, which is an average of 2.1 million per annum and 40 out of the submitted Programmes progressed to Impact assessment. And they range from 1.2 million per annum up to 3.3 million per annum.

And when we then look at the funded Research Programmes that were 19 in total, they ranged from 1.2 million per annum up to 3 million per annum.

As Danette pointed already out earlier, and this year we received a high number of proposals that ask for a large amount of funding, and that really placed a significant constraint on the portfolio balancing. And yeah, it didn't. Yeah. It was a unique or a different challenge for the Science Board this year than was last year again. Yeah.

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Right? So out of the 316 Smart Ideas that were submitted 2 were made ineligible, and 112 progress to full proposals. Out of the 106 Research Programmes one was made ineligible and 40 progress to impact assessment.

Overall 68, were funded: 49 Smart Ideas and 19 Research Programmes which results in an overall success rate of 16.1 % split up in 15.5% for Smart Ideas and 17.9% for Research Programmes looking at the success rate.

And just to give you even more numbers. So, looking at the 49 Smart Ideas programs that were funded that resulted in 17.7 million per annum and funding and 14 million in a total contract value and for the 19 Research Programmes and that results with 30.9 million per annum and a total of 196.98 million as a total contract value.

Looking at Research Programmes again, we also have the Impact categories and we are aiming to fund proposals and for a split of 50% in Protect and Add value and 50% for transform Programmes.

And this year, we can tell you that 45 applications out of the 106 submitted under the Transform impact category. So that's 42.5% and 15 out of the 40 Programmes that process that progress to the impact assessments resubmitted under the transform impact category.

And 7 out of the 19 that were funded were transform Programmes. If you're interested what Programmes were funded under the Transform Impact category then please go on our website. and they are all listed there, or the successful Programmes and you can also identify the ones that are Transform ones.

Looking at the specific Investment Signals. And it was really positive to see that out of the 40 Programmes and 32, 32 out of the 40 Programmes that progressed to Impact assessment had at least one specific, one specific, then signal targeted. So that was really good to see.

Alright. So here I provide a little bit of a breakdown for the socio-economic objective targets that we have. So the targets are 70% for economic, 25 for environment and 5% in a societal area. When we look at the submissions and this is together our Smart Ideas and Research Programmes and you can see that we have close to 74% submissions in the economic category and around 18% in the environmental one and 7.5 in the societal one, and it shows you we received less in environmental category and more in the societal one.

And when we look at the one that got funded. Then it's again 73%, the funded under the economic, in the economic area, 17.5 in the environmental one and 8.8 in a societal area and 0.6 under expanding knowledge. And you can see, we receive really really high quality Programmes under the societal category as well. And so that means we have bit oversubscribed in this area at the moment and unsubscribed in environmental one. And Alan will talk about this in more detail later on.

[Visual: Bar chart in teal green and light green showing the SEO code breakdown for The Endeavour Fund across twenty-two categories.]

And to put you the numbers in a more graphical way. Here you can see the large charts I'm showing you. The dark green bars is our existing investments and committed investments and the light green ones, and show the 2023 and funding one.

And you can see that for example, we fund a lot in a manufacturing and primary production as well as construction. But this year there was also more funding given into the economics and commerce area, as well as other environments and freshwater environments. Also interesting to see for you is so for example, funding research, outcomes under the natural resource use or natural hazards and the close under the economic area at the moment. So that also contributes why we are oversubscribed in economic and under subscribed in environment.

Giving you the breakdown by submissions and success rate by organizations and is you can see. The majority of applications we receive are from Tertiary institutes and followed by CRIs, and then by independent research organizations and organizations classified as other. And you can see the success rates, the proportion of funded proposals here at the end. And for independent Research Programmes, it's close to 40 and second one CRIs, close to 18 between 18 and 19, Tertiary Institutes, had a funded, a proposal percentage of 14% and organizations classified as others close to 8%

Looking at Research Programmes again, and largest amount of applications we received were from Tertiary institutes, followed by CRIs, independent research organizations, and then organizations classified as other success at a proportional funded proposals. I mean, percentage. You can see Tertiary institutes had a rate of 17.4% and CRIs is 14.3, independent research organizations, organization 60, and unfortunately and non-funded proposals for organizations classified as other.

For everyone who is really interested in seeing trends over the years, and that's what you can see here. And since 2017 so this year we received less, and applications compared to last year. However, the success rate is, remains the same with 15.5%, and also very similar is the annual value of new investment compared to last year. And yeah, this slide shows you the comparison since 2017.

And looking at Research Programmes, what this tells you, is that in 2023 we received the lowest and number of submissions, and that's 106, however, and the success rate of funded Programmes remains in line. Last year was 17.9% and a really also large annual value of new investment with 39.9 million, which is, and the highest since, and 2019.

Right? So there was a lot of numbers. And now, I would tell you a little bit more around. And the narrative CV, and the dual use and sensitive technology analysis we are doing on our programs.

So in. And the Endeavour 2023 round was the first round to introduce the narrative CV. And it was received really well. The applicants had a choice of using either still the standard RS&T CV template, or the narrative CV template, really depending on your history, on your career path.

And it's great to see that more than half of the applications included a narrative CV so thank you for that.

I can also let you know that and the assessors were trained on the narrative CV to introduce them the difference the differences of the of the 2 CV templates and we also surveyed them, and the feedback was really positive, and we will also do a survey with all the applicants and that will be underway very soon

Regarding the dual use and sensitive analysis. That's done by us on submitted proposals. So Alan will talk about this in more detail later on but what I really want to highlight here is, that this analysis does not is not included in the decision making of which of the proposals are getting funded. And this is really just it might only give you an additional reporting requirement and or maybe apply contract condition on your program and so what I can tell you for this year we had 7 Smart Ideas that received the contract conditions after the dual use, sensitive tech analysis and 3 Research Programmes. Again, if you're not very familiar, what this is all about Alan will introduce you to that later on.

[Visual: Image showing Diversity Data Dashboard]

Regarding the diversity data. I know many of you are interested in the data and how it looks like so I can let you know that we have the diversity data dashboard, which is a nice shiny app. Where you can select different areas, for example, that diversity data by gender, by career stage and you can create your own you know graphs and to see what you're interested in.

The data for the 2023 round is already included in the dashboard so you can look at it for the Smart Ideas and Research Programmes, but also other funds I included into that dashboard. What's really great is you can also download the data in an Excel spreadsheet. And then do your own analysis. Create your own graphs, make your own colours whatever works for you. And again, the data from the diversity data is also not included in the data in the decision-making process.

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Right? So my last slide is about, and the assessor feedback that all the applications receive.

So what's really great is we can provide you now direct feedback from assessors to you. So we ask them to provide you one main strength and one main weakness. And again, and that's not moderated for us. So it comes directly, and some might be more useful than other feedback. But please, yeah, it should hopefully improve your Programmes in case you were not successful in the current round, in the 2023 round. So what has happened is we provided feedback after the Smart Ideas Concept stage and then all the other feedback was provided by the end of the round. So for Smart Ideas, for Research Programmes, Excellence stage and Research Programmes, Impact stage.

And at the moment, we are also currently running our research office meetings. So with some of you, we have already met. With some of you we will meet. There's also the opportunity, and to discuss the feedback that you have received, and or any other questions that that's not answered through that presentation or through the QA later. So if it's more specific, that's also an opportunity for you to talk to us.

Or you can also send us an email. And in our Endeavour, mailbox here and great. So now I will pass on to my colleague and Gabby.

Gabby Hine: Kia ora everyone. My name is Gabby Hine. I'm a Senior Investment Manager and the contestable team here at MBIE. And I co-lead the Endeavour fund with Melanie.

So I'm going to be talking to you briefly about the 2024 Endeavour round, just going over a few key points. So firstly, we'll talk about the key documents.

Secondly, we'll talk about what hasn't changed from 2023, what has changed from 2023, and of course the key dates for this year.

[Visual: Images of the MBIE Endeavour Fund template documents]

So key documents same as normal. So we have the Gazette notice. Please go and have a look at that that, it is up there is a link to there on our website. We have the national statement of science investment which goes through to 2025, and it's the same one that you had for 2023 rounds.

We have our Investment Plan, which is the same one that you have for the 2023 round, Vision Mātauranga policy.

But we do have new. We have registration templates and proposal templates. These are new for 2024. This is not an Endeavour thing, so to speak, it's actually a change in the way we display information on the MBIE website. So we now for our funds, not just Endeavour, provides you with templates for accessibility to make it a bit easier. And hopefully, enable you to do your research a bit easier in terms of your planning.

So if you go to our website, you will see that there are registration templates there for both Smart Ideas and Research Programmes, and the proposal templates there as well for you to download and use.

So the 2024 round. What do we need to know? Well, the investment is the same as this new annual investment of 57 million, 18 million for Smart Ideas and 39 million for Research Programmes. The portfolio targets are the same. We've got 50 50 for Protect and Add Value and Transform. And these are impact categories within Research Programmes. Only we have the same split. Of course, between economic, environmental and societal, this being 70% economic, 25% environmental and 5% societal research outcomes for portfolio balancing.

We also have the same split as well between the investment and Smart Ideas and Research Programmes with 20% Smart Ideas and 80% Research Programmes.

Please note, of course, that there is an exclusion for proposals that are predominantly health, defence and expanding knowledge. So the sum, the total sum of these outcomes must be less than 50% of the proposals total outcomes.

So what has stayed unchanged from 2023. Well, Investment Signals are the same, as I've just said. Vision Mātauranga information and assessment is the same. The targets for the number of proposals that we will fund will be the same. That's again, 19 Research Programmes in 49 Smart Ideas. The eligibility criteria remains the same.

We still have a narrative CV as an alternative to the academic CV. The risk sections that we added in in 2023 are still there, and you can change your title after registration.

So what has changed for 2024? Well, major change that you need to know is that diversity data is required for key team members for Smart Ideas concept and Smart Ideas for proposal and Research Programmes. So this means that for your key project team members are in those mechanisms, you will need to have that diversity data completed before submission to be able to submit.

Now, this does not mean you have to provide diversity data if you do not want to. You can click prefer not to say, however, it does need to be completed in your profile within Pītau.

Please note, however, it's not required at registration stage for RP or for SI. So we're not requiring it then. But you will need to have it done by the time you submit your Smart Ideas Concept and by the time you submit your Research Programme.

please note, of course, as well that applicants need to put this in themselves. So it's really important to encourage people in your team to go and do that as soon as possible.

What else has changed? As I said before, the website content, and the documentation looks a little bit different in line with the change in government standards, however, the content is the same. The call for proposals is the same, and the assessment and scoring is the same. It just looks a little bit different in the way that we've set it out on our website and in the documents.

What has changed? So also, interestingly, few things Impact Statement is no longer tied to your budget. So that is a change. The FTE Table that is no longer tied to the Impact Statement, which is a big change from previous years.

Another note is that research aims are now called deliverables, but they're exactly the same thing and critical steps, and now called tasks. But again, they're exactly the same thing.

What else? So a few little things about Pītau. So now that we are in Pītau, a few changes in our roles.

So science leader is no more. There's now Principal Investigator in line with lots of other funds.

Leader is no longer required. So that is gone.

Key researcher remains exactly the same.

Other is gone, that is now just researcher which is a much better title.

Key individual is exactly the same.

We've also introduced a new category, expert or mentor. Now, this is for those people who are not necessarily involved in the research themselves but maybe they're in an advisory or mentorship capacity, perhaps for an early career researcher or just providing guidance across the the span of the project.

Postdoc is no longer being used. That is not a category in Pītau, therefore postdocs should go under researcher where they belong if they are named, and you know who they're going to be at the time you apply. If you don't know at that stage, and they're unnamed please put them under project support.

Student, of course, is student.

And the last category which we now have in Pītau is Project Support, where you can put anyone involved in the project who doesn't fit into the other categories.

You'll also see on the other side of that screen a wee snippet there from Pītau. So we have key information, resources, financial information classifications, conflicts of interest and submit. So that's from a registration for Smart Ideas.

So the subsections look a little bit different. We've not got exactly the same names for the subsections. So its set out a bit differently. But all the content is the same. It's just a little bit of a different order, and set out a little bit differently than you might be used to.

So key dates for Smart Ideas. Registration period right well that opens on the thirtieth October, when Pītau goes live, and it goes through now till the fifteenth of November.

The submission period for your Concepts goes from the thirtieth of October right through until 12 noon on the 22nd of November. So, yes, there is a crossover period there. This means that as soon as you submit your registration you can create your Concept, and we have done this to give you as much time as possible after Pītau goes live.

For Research Programmes. The registration period opens on the thirtieth of October as well, and goes right through till 12 noon sixth of December and the full proposal submission period opens on the thirteenth of October and goes right through till 12 noon on the sixth of March. All these dates are on our website. So please go there, and they're all there all up to date, so you can refer to them there.

Thank you very much, and I will pass over to Alan, who will be talking to you about things applicants need to know.

Alan Coulson: Kia ora koutou katoa. Ko Alan Coulson toku ingoa. I'm the manager of Contestable Investments and the Endeavour Fund manager. So this section is titled things for applicants to consider. But it's just a bunch of things that we thought you might be interested in, and I didn't have a better title. So that's why the title is what it is.

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So in general, what we're looking for in Endeavour. We're looking for ambitious science. That's science which transforms New Zealand's future. So please be ambitious. And we recognize that ambitious science is risky, and this is why we provide you with risk tables so that those risks can be proactively acknowledged. And importantly, it gives you the opportunity to describe mitigations against any risks that that you identify with your ambitious research. So please do be ambitious. Don't be afraid of ambition. Don't be afraid of risk. Simply indicate to us and to the assessors that you are mitigating any risks.

When you are preparing your proposals, we would encourage you to start early and to co-design within users. So as an example, I can, some people can come up with a really good research idea, write a really good research program and then present it to the end-use stakeholders a week before submission, and say, can you please support this program? In that case it's probably pretty obvious on reading the proposal by an assessor that that program has not been co-Designed. The advantage of engaging early with your end users and stakeholders is that they can provide input into the shape of the program, particularly in the implementation pathway. So not only are the is the research itself shaped by those stakeholders, but the way that you exchange information with them and create, turn science outputs into outcomes and impact for New Zealand is really clear. And it's really obvious that the stakeholders have really bought into that plan.

Gabby did put up the key documents, and I would strongly encourage you to read them all. But in particular the Gazette notice around eligibility and the scoring mechanisms, the Investment Plan in terms of Investment Signals, and in particular the assessment and the scoring guide that we provide to our assessors. This helps you to understand what we're asking our assessors to do. The set, the things they're looking for, to be able to provide you with a good score, and really helps you to put your head into the head of the assessor, and which will help you craft your proposal so that you can make the information that the assessors are looking for very easy to find.

This slide summarises some advice we've had from government end users, which actually applies to all end users of research. So, as I've said in the in the previous slide, please engage early so that you are generally co-designing.

Where you're aligning with government policy or government strategies show specifically how your policy aligns. It's not sufficient simply to say, this program aligns with policies, name the policies, and demonstrate what parts of your research are aligning with that policy.

When you discuss your research with an agency or any other end user, they may be able to provide you with additional support. And there are some examples of how that support could be provided there in particular, having an advisory panel of end use stakeholders is one way of demonstrating high stakeholder commitment to your program, and it's a way of strengthening your Implementation Pathway.

Any end users, whether they be government or commercial or social they will have processes which they follow to garner support and work out how to interact with a program that you might be wanting to have them engaged in. So you need to allow time for that process to run to completion.

Which means that you need to be talking to people early. They will have their processes and guidelines and timelines, and our suggestion is that now is a good time to be having those as conversations with your stakeholders and end users if you haven't already.

And we have at the bottom of this slide some contact information for 3 of the agencies that have contacted us with these concerns and encouraging people to use that those contacts to get in touch with them early. For other stakeholders obviously, hopefully, you already have their contact information.

So this slide talks a little bit how to demonstrate how you meet investment signals. So describe a fit to the signal where it exists and be specific. How does your program align? For example, if you're meeting, for example, the climate change signal, describe how your program, aligns to it, and to what extent it does provide the benefits to that particular signal.

Don't try to create fit when none exists. There are a number of signals. You don't have to respond to them all, so there are General Signals, there's a specific investment signals, that Vision Mātauranga policy, and that Transform versus Protect and Add Value for Research Programmes. Not all Programmes will fit all of these signals, and I would strongly suggest that where you don't fit don't try to demonstrate a fit because if it doesn't genuinely fit it will be quite obvious to the assessors, and that will undermine the overall credibility of your program. So be targeted. Be strategic about which signals you respond to, and how you address that alignment.

Consider the value criterion carefully for Research Programmes. And we've alluded this to a couple of times. This year in particular we had a significant number of Research Programmes that were asking for large amounts of funding. So the targets are in the Gazette Notice, the target for the number of Research Programmes that the Science Board aims to fund and the available budget for funding Research Programmes. I would encourage you to do the maths.

So if you are asking for more than the average amount of funding available for a programme, you are taking a risk that if everyone else is pushing that envelope the Science Board may be in a position where they need to apply the value criterion to meet the gazetted targets for the number of Research Programmes. So be strategic about the amount of money you ask for. We do strongly encourage you to right size your research. So will your programme has an ambitious package of research which genuinely is going to be expensive to deliver, and there are no things that you think you could take out and still deliver the full package of outputs, and therefore impact for New Zealand then by all means ask for the amount of money that you require, but do it in the knowledge that if everyone else is doing the same thing, that value criteria may have to be applied by the Science Board. On the flip side you can also right size your Programmes by adjusting the ambition of your program to suit the available funding. So do you actually need all of those aspects of your package that you presented if the amount of money that you require to deliver that full package is significantly more than the average amount? We won't give you guidance there other than whatever you choose to do be cognizant of what implications are.

And also don't try to game the system. And this is about saying in a little bit more specificity, don't try to create fit when none exists. So, for example, I've talked about the climate change signal. So you may be, for example, in an environmental space where you are directly applying, addressing the climate change signal, your SEO case codes might be in the environmental area and it's clear that your impacts are in an environmental space. Therefore, don't also try to demonstrate alignment with creating human knowledge intensive industries. Clearly, if your main focus is to create environmental impacts and you're delivering it through existing organisations it's unlikely that you are going to be credibly able to demonstrate that you are developing new and knowledge-intensive industries at the same time. So don't try to game the system.

[Visual: Gloved hands using a metal ruler to measure a concrete block]

Addressing Excellence as a reminder that excellence is always assessed first so you must score well here, even to get through to impact assessment whether that is a Smart Idea or a Research programme. So I'd encourage you to describe your science and research clearly make it easy for the assessors to understand. Highlight where the ambition is. We want ambitious research. We want risky research. And one way to highlight ambition is to use a research hypothesis, if X then Y, if we solve this problem, then we can produce these impacts over time.

And as I've described before, science is risky, we encourage risky, ambitious science. But then describe the mitigations that you have against these risks. If we try this risky thing and it doesn't work, what's the plan B, that might enable us to develop deliver the same thing in a different way.

Also consider your audience. So assessors you can assume, have technical expertise for some of your program if it, if it encompasses a variety of science disciplines you can expect the assessors will be experts in at least one of those disciplines, but they won't be experts in all of the disciplines if you have a multi-disciplinary program. So therefore, you need to describe your research in a general enough way that an expert in an adjacent field can understand it, but also don't patronise your assessors. They are experts in a field, probably in adjacent field and they don't appreciate being talked down to. Do reveal the complexity and the challenges in your research, so that those assessors can really get a good feel for the merits of the excellence of the research.

And finally provide sufficient detail to allow the assessors to do their job, describe what you think they need to be able to assess its viability, but also be concise. Once you make a point move on, there are lots of points that you do need to make to describe the excellence of your program and then impact. So for Research Programmes in particular, a reminder that impact is 50% of the total score. It's not something that you want to shoehorn in at the end. So make sure that you do a good job in the, for in all of the impact sections. So in particular benefit to New Zealand, you need to recognize this isn't economic and or impact hypothesis for a non-economic output category programme. It isn't a promise that if our research works we will deliver 100 million dollars to the New Zealand economy, or we will save 500 lives because blah blah blah it's a hypothesis that says, if this happens and the conditions are right, this is the magnitude of the benefit that we think we will be able to deliver.

Also be specific about which stakeholders will deliver this impact particularly for Research Programmes quantify this, and that's linking in the delivery of the program to the benefits that you are claiming that will be derived from successful completion of the programme.

Importantly, the pathway to implementation describes how you'll work with stakeholders to deliver impact from the research. It's not the Science Project plan. We still get some proposals that describe the science plan for delivering the project as their pathway to implementation. The pathway should be used to describe how the stakeholders are involved in the program during its life so life, cycle and beyond, so that there's a clear pathway from science output through to outcome through to impact. And do ensure that the entire proposal is consistent in demonstrating that stakeholder involvement. So, for example, if stakeholders are only mentioned in the pathway to implementation, don't appear in the science methodology don't appear in the FTE tables, there's no co-funding, then the assessors may question the degree to which stakeholders are actually involved in the program.

And like science risk, there can be impact delivery risks. Again, risk is not necessarily a bad thing. So we advise that you use the risk sections appropriately. Where you think there is a risk, describe that risk and then describe the mitigation. So, for example, a particular key stakeholder may be critical to the delivery of the program but, for example, for a Research Programme which takes 5 years from start to finish the focus, or even the viability of that key stakeholder may change over those that 5 year period so what mitigations do you have to address that acknowledging that precarity of longevity and the ability to of individual stakeholders to be able to commit to that period of time.

[Visual: Screenshot of ANZSRC Database]

A little bit on the ANZSRC codes. This is the Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification.

So there are 3 classifications, 2 of which we use actively in assessing proposals. There's the Fields of Research, or FOR codes which are defined at registration, and the Socioeconomic objective SEO codes which are also defined at registration.

So for the Fields of Research codes, we use those to help assign assessors to your proposals along with, and other information, such as the keywords. And indeed our assessor managers do read your entire program, but to really help us target the assessors that will be most appropriate for your program use the FOR codes judiciously. Make sure that they accurately match the program content, but also please kick them to a minimum. We suggest you use no more than 3, and the reason for that is, it simply helps the matching exercise. If you if you mention eight FOR codes, then we need our assessor managers need to start guessing, which are the more important ones, and we certainly won't be able to find assessors that are fully aligned with that full suite. So make sure the FOR codes do match the program content and focus on the key areas of expertise that assessors will need to assess the viability of the excellent sections of your program for the SEO codes. The Science Board for Research Programmes in particular uses these to assess the balance of mix of investments. And this is to assess the concentration of investment across the portfolio, as was shared by Melanie in the bar charts earlier.

So again, please ensure that the codes accurately match the program content, but also do keep these to a minimum. Use no more than 3, so that we can inform the Science Board of where the balance of the impact of your research will accrue if that research is successful.

[Visual: Front page of Trusted Research Document]

Because it is relatively new requirements still just covering off dual-use sensitive technologies. So New Zealand has a protective security requirements regime. It's administered by an organization called Protective Security and its URL is down the bottom there. So the protective security requirements that we are assessing your program for within MBIE, are not things that the requirement is not something that MBIE imposes. That requirement is already encumbered on you. And it's been placed there by the protective security requirements people. We're simply implementing this.

So please to help us perform our assessments of the of the dual use, sensitive technology. component of your program, please use the profiling section were applicable. So, for example, if your program has genetic engineering content, please use the profiling section to highlight that to us.

Dual use sensitive technology, as Melanie described is not used to assess that merits of your program. It doesn't affect the outcome of the investment decision in any way. But if we if MBIE perform, if MBIE assesses that your program does have dual use sensitive technology considerations which need to be addressed we will respond by placing a contract condition on your program that will inform you that you need to comply with protective security requirements, and we will ask you to report on this to us annually.

But reiterate, reiterating that this doesn't affect the scoring of the proposal, and Melanie gave the figures for the number of Smart Ideas and Research Programmes this year that had dual use sensitive technology contract conditions put in. It was a relatively small number.

So some recurring themes that we see coming in and proposals. The knowledge investments, the Knowledge Intensive investment signal applies to the target industry, not the science. Yes, your science is knowledge intensive, we understand that that's not the point of the investment signal. The point of the investment signal is to encourage the creation of new industries which employ highly skilled workers, a majority which, for example, would have a university qualification or lifting the knowledge, intensity of existing industries so that they apply, apply more value, add to their products.

All. As I say, all research is knowledge intensive. It's not what happens within your program. It's what happens within the stakeholders after your program that the knowledge intensive signal applies to.

PhD students and how they react interact with Smart Ideas. So what we've seen increasingly over the last few years as the amount of research that our Smart Ideas fixed budget is able to purchase as that has been degraded through inflation is that people have, some people have responded to this by building a program around a single PhD student. Now, what this can mean is that when, if a program, if the Smart Idea, for example, is funded and that PhD student is only hypothetical, they're not yet recruited, those Smart Ideas are requiring significant delays before they begin their research while they recruit the PhD. student. That's not our intention for Smart Ideas and PhD. students. We encourage the use of students on your program, but they should be an input into the program rather than having the program designed on around them. So we would encourage you when you submit your proposal to ensure that you are able to deliver the program with your existing resources rather than relying on the improvement of and un yet identified future resources to be able to begin the delivery of the program

Conflicts of interest. So we allow applicants to identify people and institutions that you believe are conflicted, and you would not wish to be involved in the assessment of your proposal. And that's great, because managing conflicts of interest is important, but please be selective and specific in identifying these conflicts. So, for example, if you are to mention 12 different research organizations in New Zealand as conflicted as well as 40 individual researchers, then our assessor managers will have a very difficult time finding assessors who are qualified to be able to assess your program. So be selective about that. Those small number of institutions and or individuals that you believe have significant conflict with the program and advise us of that at your application stage. So our guidance is if you if you're naming more than about 10, you're probably going overboard.

Also. finally, please ensure that your public statement accurately reflects your program and does not include confidential or private information. Now, the clue here is in the name public statements. These are published on our website. If your program is successful, so please don't include anything which is confidential, particularly commercially confidential information or reveals information which breaches an individual's privacy in the public statement.

So finally, just wanted to reinforce a couple of, 3 things.

I've spoken about the importance of right sizing your program. So for Smart Ideas just reiterating, please ensure that you can start the work program within the existing resources.

And for Research Programmes, consider the value, consider the available funding, and, if necessary, adjust the ambition of your research so that that value criterion doesn't become the deciding factor in Science Board making the funding decision around your programme.

For Vision Mātauranga, what we have seen is increasingly, people are building Vision Mātauranga into their programs and increasingly responding very well to the signal. But please ensure that that work is appropriately, appropriately resourced. So if you have very high Vision Mātauranga content but you have no Māori end users or no Māori researchers, we might question as to whether you have the ability to deliver the Vision Mātauranga vision that you have expanded on in the proposal.

And finally, a word on Pītau. So Endeavour in Pītau will be the same as in Endeavour in IMS. It will look different. It's a different platform. And we're confident, once we're over the initial teething issues that it will work better.

So if you want to know more about Endeavour, I'll give you some contact details in the next slide, feel free to contact us we can help explain the process to you of Endeavour. We can also help with the use of Pītau. Things we can't do as we cannot help you interpret the calls for proposals.

The information provided in the call for proposals is the same for everyone. You need to interpret that as best you can.

We also cannot provide specific advice about your proposal.

So we often are asked, are you interested in this area of science? Do you think this program is fundable? What do you think we could do to strengthen this proposal? We're not able to provide that advice. And there are people available, such as bid writing professionals that can help with that, research offices within your organizations obviously can help with this type of advice.

We also cannot provide help with real me, so real me is required with Pītau to for authentication.

MBIE does not administer RealMe. It's administered there by the DIA. But help is available at that. Oh, 800 number and that, yeah. URL. If you have trouble with your RealMe, that's those are the places to contact. Please don't contact MBIE.

So. Here are our contact deal details. So for questions on the process, the core proposal content please use the Endeavour mailbox, and questions about the portal or the proposal submission, please contact IMS support at that email address.