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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 30, No. 2. 1967.

N.Z. Research Being Slowed

N.Z. Research Being Slowed

NZSPA Reporter

Christchurch — Research in New Zealand is being slowed down because workers have to fill out so many forms for the National Research Council.

Never in the field of scientific research have so many forms been required by so few people to so little purpose, said the head of Canterbury University's School of Engineering (Professor H. J. Hopkins).

Even when a scientist did not want to start any research, the forms still arrived. "It seems we have to fill in a form for the rat race even when we do not desire to compete," Professor Hopkins said. "If you say you are not contemplating any research in the near future you cook your goose for several years."

Worse still, the council did not seem to take any notice of the forms after they were filled out.

Professor Hopkins said that in the Advisory Council's reports on the needs of bulking research it gave two pages of lip-service to the submissions made to it. But in its recommendations it took no account of its own statements on the two previous pages.

"It seems that research is being dealt with in this way," he said, and this was probably one reason why there was a shortage of research workers here and in Australia.

It was more difficult for a slowly growing university to obtain staff of the highest calibre because of the limited scope for research students and the emphasis on teaching, Dr. Wright added.

The need for more students of this type in New Zealand Universities was recognised and some steps were being taken to remedy the situation.