Endeavour Fund

Endeavour Fund 2025 webinar presentation transcript

Endeavour Fund 2025 webinar presentation [PPTX, 540 KB]

[Slide 1: Presentation opens with MBIE branded presentation title screen entitled “Endeavour Fund 2025 Investment Round”. A picture of the presenter, Melanie Tomintz, is inlaid at the top right.]

[Audio: Melanie speaks.]

Kia ora koutou. My name is Melanie Tomintz, and I'm the fund lead for the Endeavor Fund 2025 investment round.

I'm going to provide you with an overview of the main changes for the Endeavor 2025.

Let's start first with the MBIE Karakia.

[Slide 2: Next presentation slide appears displaying the text for the MBIE opening karakia]

Tāwhia tō mana kia mau, kia māia, Ka huri taku aro ki te pae kahurangi,

kei reira te orana mōku

Mā mahi tahi, ka ora, ka puāwai

Ā mātau mahi katoa, ka pono, ka tika

Tihei Mauri Ora

Retain and hold fast to your mana, be bold, be brave.

We turn your attention to the future, that's where the opportunities lie.

By working together we will flourish and achieve greatness.

Taking responsibility to commit to doing things right.

Tihei Mauri Ora.

[Slide 3: Next presentation slide appears displaying the outline of the presentation]

The outline of this presentation includes a brief overview of the Endeavour Fund.

I will highlight the main changes to the Endeavour Fund 2025 Gazette notice, and the new investment plan for the years 2025 to 2027.

Following that I will dive a bit deeper into the changes for the Research Programmes and Smart Ideas funding mechanisms, and I will conclude with our plans forward until round opening.

[Slide 4: Next presentation slide appears displaying information about the Endeavour Fund]

The Endeavour Fund is New Zealand's biggest open contestable fund that supports excellent science in a wide range of impact areas.

The aim of the fund is to support research, science or technology, or related activities that have high potential to positively transform New Zealand's economic, environmental and societal outcomes, give effect to the Vision Mātauranga policy where applicable and drive an increasing focus on excellent research and the potential for impact in areas of future value growth or critical need for New Zealand.

[Slide 5: Next presentation slide appears displaying information about the 2025 Gazette Notice]

The Endeavour Fund 2025 Gazette notice shows that the Science Board may invest up to 55 million dollars of new annual funding. The indicative split is 17 million dollars, allocated for Smart Ideas and 38 million dollars allocated to Research Programmes.

Overall, this is a decrease of 2 million dollars compared to the Endeavour Fund 2024 investment round.

The reduction is due to the decisions made by Cabinet, which reduced funding by 9.75 million dollars from 2027/28.

Because we fund up to five years, we had to make some reductions now. All those figures are exclusive of GST.

The Science Board will aim to fund at least 47 Smart Ideas proposals and at least 17 Research Programmes proposals.

The funding decision will depend on various criteria as outlined in the Gazette notice and portfolio balancing may be applied.

For the Smart Ideas funding mechanisms, we are moving from a 2-stage application and assessment process to a 1-stage application and assessment process, as well as introducing a cap on applications for research organizations.

And I will talk later about those changes in more detail.

[Slide 6: Next presentation slide appears displaying information about the Investment Plan 2025 to 2027]

With the Endeavour Fund 2025 investment round also comes a new investment plan for the next 3 years, 2025 to 2027, outlining our current Government's priorities and therefore investment signals.

The Science Board will also look for opportunities to fund proposals that enable wealth creation through developing new knowledge that lifts New Zealand's economic performance, including an uplift in commercialization, supports adaption to climate change, and builds a resilient and prosperous society.

As well as to support growth of our base of innovative high value exporting technology firms.

The impact criteria for Smart Ideas and Research Programmes are simplified and the impact categories Protect and Add Value and Transform are removed for Research Programmes.

MBIE analysis show that these categories have not achieved the intended purpose.

[Slide 7: Next presentation slide appears displaying information about the Vision Mātauranga policy with a picture of woven material at the bottom – picture not contributing to the content]

The language around the Vision Mātauranga policy is updated throughout all the documents.

Proposals for the 2025 endeavour round should consider the relevancy of the Vision Mātauranga policy where applicable, but the Vision Mātauranga policy will not be relevant to all proposals, and that is okay.

Where it is applicable, proposals should demonstrate the relevance and use of a fit for purpose approach.

When writing your proposal, ensure you make the case why or why not your proposal gives effect to the Vision Mātauranga policy.

[Slide 8: Next presentation slide appears displaying information about Smart Ideas challenges with a picture at the bottom showing silver balls balancing on boards – picture is not contributing to the content]

The changes outlined before are timely, as the current process puts some unnecessary burden on applicants, assessors, and MBIE itself.

In addition, MBIE’s operational budget has been reduced, which is one reason why a cap for applications for Smart Ideas is introduced.

The costs for processing Smart Ideas are roughly double that of research programs for half the available funding and the requirements for Smart Ideas applicants are onerous for value of investment.

The move to a 1-stage investment process which was asked for by the sector means we need to constrain the number of proposals.

And this leads me to summarizing the main changes for the Endeavour Fund 2025 investment round.

[Slide 9: Next presentation slide appears displaying information about the main changes for Smart ideas with a picture of leaves at the right-hand side – picture is not contributing to the content]

So, looking at the Smart Ideas funding mechanism, we are going to move from a 2-stage application process to a 1-stage application process.

With that comes a simplified and shortened application form.

Information asked for is reduced by ensuring the relevant sections for assessors are kept, allowing them to assess by having sufficient quality information.

The assessment process also changes from a 2-stage assessment to a 1-stage assessment that results in needing less assessors overall.

For Smart Ideas, an assessor will be asked to assess both excellence and impact at the same time.

To ensure MBIE can handle the volume of applications with available resources under a tight fiscal environment, a target for Smart Ideas only is introduced of 150 applications in total.

To achieve this, we are introducing a cap on a number of applications per research organization.

That means a research organization is entitled to submit registrations and applications up to their defined organizational cap. And I will talk more about the introduced cap for organizations shortly.

[Slide 10: Next presentation slide appears displaying information about the timeline with a picture of an egg timer at the right-hand side – picture is not contributing to the content]

So, what do these changes mean for the timing of application, submission, and funding decision?

For Smart Ideas, we have changed a timeline.

The registration period is end of September to end of October, followed by application submissions closing mid-December.

This will allow assessments to happen in February and the Science Board can make the funding decision in May.

Applicants will get notified about the funding decision and feedback on their proposals in June.

Contracts will get set up with starting date 1st of October 2025.

So, these changes will allow successful applicants to get ready for their programmes to start in October and unsuccessful applicants have a longer time period to work on improving their proposals if a resubmission is planned.

[Slide 11: Next presentation slide appears displaying information about cap on number of applications]

Combining sorry, coming back to the cap on number of applications per research organizations, I want to emphasize that the cap applied to Smart Ideas funding mechanism only.

There is no cap for Research Programmes for the 2025 investment round. However, if we see a significant increase in Research Programmes submissions, then we will review the submission guidance for Research Programmes.

Going back to Smart Ideas, the number of applications we aim to receive for the 2025 funding round is 150.

This will result in an overall success rate of around 1 in 3.

There are various ways in how a cap on the number of applicants per research organization can get set up.

For the 2025 funding round, we have based a calculation on a formula using a rolling number of awarded contracts as a baseline.

Our data shows that the calculated cap is very similar to the number of applications that we have seen progressing to Smart Ideas full proposals in previous rounds.

Registrations and applications that exceed the allocated cap will not be assessed.

What the cap looks like for your organization is outlined on MBIE’s Endeavor Fund webpage.

And the exact URL is written out on this slide.

Based on the current setup for the organizational capping on the number of submissions, these will vary over time and information will be updated annually on MBIE’s webpage.

As mentioned earlier on in this presentation, we are going to run Smart Ideas funding mechanism as a pilot in 2025, and learnings will be taken on board for the following funding rounds.

[Slide 12: Next presentation slide appears displaying information about what remains the same for the Endeavour fund – 5 pictures, not content related are shown. This includes a dart board with and arrow, a diagram, a light bulb, a ringing alarm clock and dollar notes]

So, the presentation so far focused mainly on the changes. So, what does remain the same?

As outlined in the new investment plan, the portfolio targets remain the same with aiming to invest 70% in economic, 25% in environmental, and 5% in societal research outcomes.

The target for both funding mechanisms continue continuous with aiming to fund 20% Smart Ideas and 80% Research Programmes.

Please note that those are targets and therefore there is flexibility for the Science Board, allowing them to change the proportion invested in each outcome category in any given round depending on the number and quality of proposals received.

The data on our current portfolio investment is available on MBIE’s website and it includes data up to and inclusive of the 2023 investment round.

Based on the latest data published, we see a slight increase in the societal portfolio and a slight decrease in the environmental portfolio.

Once the 2024 investment decision is announced, updated information will get communicated and published.

So, moving on to assessments, then there is no change in assessing the following criterion in a proposal.

Excellence with focus on science excellence and team excellence, as well as the potential impact with a focus on benefit to New Zealand and implementation pathways.

The weightings applied to Smart Ideas and Research Programmes differ for the Endeavour 2024 investment round, and there is no change for 2025.

Smart Ideas, for example, has a stronger emphasis on science excellence being in line with the policy intent.

There is also no change intended for Research Programmes key dates, as outlined earlier, as well as no change on the announcement of contracts being the 1st of October 2025 for both funding mechanisms.

The advantage of the earlier funding decision for Smart Ideas, however, is the benefit of planning the program delivery earlier.

[Slide 13: Next presentation slide appears displaying information about next steps with 4 pictures diagonal, not contributing to the content, including a calendar icon, a “done” tick , a laptop, a snowflake]

Providing all those information to you, we understand that you might have questions to clarify some of the changes to Smart Ideas or the 2025 investment round overall.

We therefore will set up live Q&A sessions where we will be available answering your questions as well as taking note of your feedback.

The sessions are scheduled for 45 min each in July, and we require a brief free registration before joining the Q&A sessions.

Dates and registration links are available on our MBIE web page.

If you have trouble finding them, then please contact endeavor@mbie.govt.nz for support.

The call for proposals is planned for beginning of September with portal opening and roadshows in October.

Dates are subject to change, and we therefore advise to sign up to our email alerts for immediate notifications.

[Slide 14: Next presentation slide appears displaying the thank you and contact slide]

And this brings me to the end of introducing you to the key changes for the 2025 investment round. And I want to thank you for your time watching this video.

If you have any questions now or in future, please reach out to us via email at endeavour@mbie.govt.nz.

We are looking forward answering your questions in July at our live Q&A sessions and I will now close this presentation with our closing karakia.

[Slide 15: Next presentation slide appears displaying the closing karakia]

Ka hiki te tapu, Kia wātea ai te ara

Kia turuki ai te ao mārama

Hui ē, Tāiki ē

Restrictions are moved aside, so the pathway is clear. To return to everyday duties, enriched and unified greetings to all.