Political party questions university’s travel funding policy

The ACT Party in New Zealand is criticising a policy giving academics who identify as Maori and Pasifika preference when applying for travel, as disadvantaging to those with the ‘wrong’ ancestry, reports RNZ.

ACT obtained a copy of Auckland University of Technology’s (AUT) guidelines for funding researcher travel which gives 30% more points for Maori researchers and 20% more for Pasifika. The system for travel funding prioritises applications based on a number of criteria like distance, risk of travel and funding sources before an ‘equity multiplier’ is applied.

ACT Party Tertiary Education and Skills spokesperson Dr Parmjeet Parmar said allocating travel funding based on race was disrespectful to those who would otherwise get funding based on merit. Parmar emailed about 500 AUT researchers, after requesting a copy of the points system from AUT last week, asking for their thoughts on the policy and for more information on it.
Full report on the RNZ site