Investigators' Blog
Building a Nest
By Troy Baisden
It was great to be at Te Pūnaha Matatini’s kickoff. As we look forward to theme meetings next week, I thought it would be useful if I explain a little more about what I’m up to, and why I’ve linked GNS Science’s “Global Change Through Time” programme to your CoRE.
In my lightning talk, at the Te Pūnaha Matatini’s kickoff, I pointed out that I work on problems like climate change and water quality. I think everyone is on board with this: we all agree these problems are complex, yet inspiring and important. They’re perhaps not funded in your CoRE because they’re so big and largely funded elsewhere. As a result, it makes good sense for someone like me involved in big CRI-based programmes on these topics to affiliate with Te Pūnaha Matatini.
But I got a sense that perhaps even complexity geeks want to keep their distance when I say, “I’m here to work on problems so big, no single person can understand them.” But that’s exactly what the problems of climate change and water quality are, by the time we recognise that solutions have to involve not only the biogeophysical system, but also societal and economic transformation.
For example, the IPCC‘s summaries of what we know about the climate change problem run to three enormous volumes, which are further summarised and integrated in another tome called a synthesis report. My goal is to help people develop tools that sort through the information in these tomes and make it work for them. That’s why I’ve joined Te Pūnaha Matatini.
I’m looking for new, better and more effective ways to think about how we build the academic architecture that connects the dots within big issues. Our knowledge about climate change, which still seeks workable solutions, developed over time from relatively simple pieces. If we agree we’re not managing climate change as well as we should, it’s important to think about redesigning the way we’re addressing this big issue. It may be we can learn from other similar problems, using them as model systems.
I’m reminded of Gall’s Law:
“A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.”
Complexity is about simple sensible things, that when connected together, are no longer simple. In this sense, building Te Pūnaha Matatini is, itself, an important complexity challenge.
I’ve come to the view that a structure like Te Pūnaha Matatini has been selected to provide some initial building blocks, each a relatively simple piece, or project. Our challenge in the early stages of development is to connect them together, keep the process exciting and simple, yet end up with something that is much more than the sum of its parts.
Within each theme, a limited number of projects will have to start simple and become working systems. One of the most interesting features of complex systems is that they often contain nested hierarchies of simpler systems. It interests me that global change, by being a series of connected problems, requires us to develop some frameworks for understanding the whole set of problems. By looking at how we can make connections and identify similar approaches during the building of Te Pūnaha Matatini, I’ll be looking for the links that help us see and manage complexity. And I’ll be looking at how these systems fit into the even bigger picture of global change. This matters for the science of science policy, which seems to be at the heart of Te Pūnaha Matatini.
When taking on a role building something, it’s important to have a goal, and mine is to improve strategy, policy and decisions across global change issues. When we begin discussing strategy, policy and decisions, complexity matters. There’s often a desire to focus on isolating problems and managing the simple systems, excluding surrounding complexity. Yet, the complex interactions in wider systems often generate unexpected instability. Bigger systems can have dynamics that are orthogonal to our expectations from simple systems. Ultimately, I see a need to improve how we generate expectations – a goal which has permeated complexity science from quantum mechanics, to social sciences, to earth system science, and beyond. Right now I’m interested how we can tackle this within dynamic research structures that obey Gall’s law, and deliver better expectations to strategy, policy and decision processes.
To conclude on a lighter note, I’ll point out that things within Te Pūnaha Matatini that catch my eye may surprise you, and have been useful insights to me. For instance, I include global trade within my definition of global change. This leads me to see big opportunities to ask whether better understanding of supply chains helps us identify how and when we can better transmit environmental value from consumers to producers, to help maintain our “clean, green” image. And I think that the success predator eradication is having in mobilising the community and voluntary sector could be a good model for wider environmental causes, and deserves attention.
I look forward to seeing our expectations evolve, and hopefully finding more insights and surprises along the way. In a sense, we’re building our nest, and it should be composed of well chosen pieces – some structural, some sticky and some shiny and interesting.
The 2014 Marsden round
I have been keeping track of the Marsden fund for a few years now over on A Measure of Science at Sciblogs New Zealand. As we wait for the results from the first round in 2015, let’s reflect on last year’s results. 2014 was another tough year for applicants, with the success rate falling to just 8.3% – well below the long run success rate of 10%. As the figure below shows, this was the fifth year in a row that the success rate has been below 10%.
The figure also shows that this is because the number of applications has risen considerable in these last five years, while below, we see that the total funding awarded has not kept pace. There was a big injection of new funding in 2009 after the National government came to power, but this only seems to have coincided with a large increase in the number of applications.
So if there is no more funding available, why are we writing more applications? The plot below shows that this increase in preliminary applications submitted has come from the universities, while the number of applications coming out of our Crown Research Institues has actually declined. This growth has not been driven by a growth in university research staff. Statistics New Zealand’s R&D survey suggests that these numbers have, if anything, declined over the last decade: in the 2004 survey, the universities reported 3300 FTE researchers, while in 2014, they reported just 3100
There certainly seems to have been a change in behaviour amongst university staff in the last few years. A decade ago there was one preliminary application for every five FTE researchers from universities, while last year this had risen to one for every three FTE researchers. It is tempting to suggest that this is in response to the increase in funding in 2009, but then one might have expected a similar response by CRI researchers, whereas the opposite has happened.
I think that this may have something to do with the pressure that university researchers are now under to measure up for the Performance Based Resarch Fund. University researchers are expected to be applying for external research funding, and for many, the Marsden fund is the only option. While we might welcome the growth in research activity in universities, this is evidently placing a signficant strain on an already stretched science and innovation system.
Finally, the other feature that caught my eye in the 2014 round was a small drop-off in proportion of funds awarded to fast-start applicants. The share of funds awarded to fast-starts has levelled off since 2011. This had to happen at some point after a steady growth in its share since the fast-start scheme was introduced in 2001.
Fast-start applicants have a slightly higher chance of success than standard applicants, with a long run success rate of 13% (c.f 9% for standard applicants). Last year though this dropped to 11%, in line with the success rate for standard proposals (7% in 2014).
Shaun on the physics of Cricket
On March 16th Shaun Hendy talked to Radio New Zealand National host, Bryan Crump about the physics of cricket.
Thegn Ladefoged
By Jessica Tulp
Thegn Ladefoged is a man with a home here in New Zealand but work that stretches across the world. One particular project has seen him travel to Easter Island to carry out an investigation on land use and its effects on the Rapa Nui population over time. Stemming from previous work in Hawaii, Thegn used methods developed to look at soil productivity and applied these to Easter Island. Thegn’s work emulates the goals of Te Pūnaha Matatini, working across multiple disciplines with ecologists, soil scientists and computer modellers.
As with any research done on Easter Island (Rapa Nui), this project was done in response to the issue of the “collapse”. Many researchers believe that unchecked population growth of the Rapa Nui society in a fragile environment was the reason behind its collapse, however this idea has recently been put into question with evidence suggesting that the extreme changes within the Rapa Nui society occurred only after European contact in AD 1722.
Thegn and his team looked at the productivity of the island to see if they could see any changes prior to the collapse. According to the work of previous researchers, they should have expected to find that nothing had changed prior to European contact in terms of productivity and land use, however this was not the case! Through a whole bunch of soil samples and weather stations, they carefully collected climate data from across the island for about three years. Looking at this data they can see where is fertile, where is not, and how this has changed over time. The fertility of the soil in any one place is related to the age of the substrate and the amount of rainfall in that area. The older the substrate, the less rainfall it can handle before it leeches away the nutrients in the soil.
In a recent publication by Thegn and his team in PNAS, they characterised different areas of Rapa Nui after analysing the data they had collected. Using obsidian hydration dating they were able to date a number of artefacts they found and discover a clear pattern of land use. Three main study areas were covered: one which was a very dry area, a second which was a wet area but with bad soils, and a third area, the “Goldilocks” of the group, which had fairly good soil and rainfall. Land use in the first area seems to have begun around 1300, with the population beginning to leave around 1650 due to droughts. In 1700 the population began to move away from the second area. European contact was not until 1722. This tells us that changes in land use in the first two areas were going on prior to any European contact.
This research brings forward new possibilities and explanations for the Rapa Nui people, arguing against a collapse before European contact. The results indicate that the change in land-use and movement of the Rapa Nui population was due to variations in the climate and soil, leading to environmental constraint rather than degradation as has been previously suggested. Shedding new light on Rapa Nui, Thegn and his team have collaborated to expose new information and add to the intriguing history of the island.
Nano-Girl Review
By Ebba Olsen, Age 14
Nano-Girl was a very interesting event. There were many experiments ranging from a small electric shock which had lights and sounds to make it seem bigger to giant explosions. Some experiments were more educational than others. Rubbing a balloon on a volunteer’s hair explained about the change within the atoms and the electrons moving between the balloon and the hair. While a shopping trolley powered by fire extinguishers was more just for fun.
My favourite experiment was liquid nitrogen sealed in a bottle placed in a bucket full of ping pong balls. The liquid nitrogen expanded causing the bottle to explode and the ping pong balls to go flying. While scientific and educational Nano-girl was also very humorous. She told many jokes and had a funny assistant called Boris who helped her conduct some of the experiments. Many of which were dangerous such as the washing detergent and fire experiment. This allowed Nano-girl to hold fire in her hand without being burnt.
Another one would have been the indoor lightning experiment but this sadly didn’t work because of something that happened during rehearsals. The projectors showed what was supposed to happen though. These projectors were very useful. It showed diagrams to explain how things worked as well as what was on stage so you could see it easier. Nano-girl was great for people of all ages. It was a fun experience definitely worth going to.
Pierre Roudier
Want to know how important soil is? Here’s one of our investigators, Pierre Roudier talking to Bryan Crump on Radio New Zealand nights last week on Monday.
To listen to the interview click here
(Photo: This is peat sampled near the Waituna Lagoon in Southland)
Adam Jaffe with Radio Live
Our Theme Leader of Complex Economic and Social Systems, Adam Jaffe, discusses the “science of science policy” with Andrew Patterson. The Business Correspondent for RadioLIVE, on Sunday Business, 01 March 2015. Here’s the link http://www.radiolive.co.nz/Adam-Jaffe-Motu-Economics/tabid/506/articleID/74424/Default.aspx
Communities of Engagement – reflections from Dion O’Neale
By Dion O’Neale
Engaging with communities is a focus for Te Pūnaha Matatini so I very much appreciated the point of Rhian Salmon’s lightning talk at our initial research symposium. In her role as a climate scientist, Rhian has spent long periods of time in Antarctica, which makes for great science outreach material. But in her presentation to Te Pūnaha Matatini, Rhian questioned how scientific we are about the outcomes of the science outreach we do. Outreach activities require substantial amounts of time and effort from scientists, often for little professional recognition. Rhian advocated developing methods for reporting on and researching the impact of these outreach activities, then using the results to inform future communication practises.
Engaging with communities of a different kind is Jeanette McLeod, a graph theorist from the University of Canterbury. Jeanette spoke about one of the ecological complexity projects that will be running in Te Pūnaha Matatini — epidemic spread in possum networks. Coming from Australia where she fed tame possums in her backyard, Jeanette is now studying how the spread of tuberculosis through possum communities is influenced by the characteristics of individual possums.
As they collectively munch their way through 21000 tons of NZ native forest each night, possums interact with one another within their own social network. Jeanette, along with collaborators Mike Plank and Alex James, is using data about these interaction networks collected by scientists at Landcare Research who tracked the locations of a population of possums in the Orongorongo valley, near Wellington. Within the possum population, super-shedders (highly infectious individuals) and super-spreaders (individuals that encounter many others) seem to play an important role in affecting the spread of diseases like TB. Understanding the effect of the heterogeneity of of individuals in the interaction network could turn out to be important for identifying possible methods of using infectious disease to control possum numbers.
Networks of interactions were a theme in Dave Maré‘s presentation too. Dave spoke about what makes cities so cool from the point of view of an economist. No matter what you measure, cities are a particularly efficient way of making stuff. Whether you measure numbers of patents or firm revenues or scientific publications, cities produce more _per capita_ as their size increases. I was interested in how Dave is teasing out the different mechanisms that might be contributing to cities getting more efficient as they get bigger. Dave is looking at how higher frequency and diversity of interactions within cities might spur innovation as people are exposed to new combinations of ideas. These could be interactions within cities due to people changing jobs, or between cities with internationally connected workers spurring exporting of the firms they work for. I’m hoping I’ll be able to explore some of the ideas Dave spoke about by working with Dave’s colleague from Motu, Izi Sin. The idea is to build a network of employment relationships so we’ll be able to quantify some of those interactions within cities and look at how they might affect the outcomes of the firms or the individuals involved.
Very cool stuff: some thoughts from Marcus on our research symposium
Here’s Victoria University-based investigator Marcus Frean reflecting on last week’s symposium:
I want to talk to Alexei Drummond about influenza, and was disappointed that I didn’t get to do so at the meeting itself, due largely to being somewhat exhausted and in recovery from said virus! I always wondered what the idea was with using local flow information to think about how the flu virus spreads, but his talk was really clear and got me excited about what was possible. I also just find the Bayesian inference over trees story fascinating in itself, flu or no flu. It got me thinking about how so many processes or diversification come down to branching over time, leaving more or less complex artefacts behind as they go. There is always this interesting issue of how to deal with the vast number of unknown tree structures that might have given rise to them. Very cool stuff. Quentin Atkinson gave a short talk about somewhat related stuff (as far as I understand it) that I would have loved to hear more about. Wow what interesting work he does though: wish I’d talked to him about that too.
I left wanting to know more about quite a few things that came up, for example Alex James’s “phylogenetics and mutualisms” connection, Jeanette McLeod’s “navigating among trees”, Peter Davis’s full-on predictive / counter-factual-capable models, Adam’s patents, Michael’s fish… !
I found Rhian’s comment about “yay” versus “reflective” aspects of the scientific enterprise salutary (if a little awkward: I might be a serial offender).
Then – and this is technically post-symposium but anyway – on the flight home I got to thinking about ideas for looking at how barter-exchange might emerge from a more primordial system in which “tit for tat” style reciprocity is first established. Talking about this with Uli en route was great – having to put the notions into words, with him saying “no that’s nuts” at suitable moments was quite a good thing! I wanted to start coding immediately, but was by then too sleepy to function: sign of a great symposium, I reckon.
No turning back
What a week! It was nearly two years ago that I sat down with Dion O’Neale to first discuss about the possibility of establishing a Centre of Research Excellence in complex systems over a beer in Wellington. And finally, last Wednesday, in the University of Auckland’s Fale Pasifika, the Vice-Chancellor Stuart McCutcheon declared Te Pūnaha Matatini open for business.
Pierre Roudier, Geoff Wilmott, Dion O’Neale, Ken Quarrie
Siouxsie Wiles, Rhian Salmon, Ed Abraham, Rebecca Priestley
Mark Gahegan, Laurie Knight, Shaun Hendy
Te Pūnaha Matatini is now starting to seem rather real. Te Pūnaha Matatini HQ has also been humming with visiting investigators hot-desking in our new wāhi hui, new students arriving, and a couple of top-secret projects. We ordered business cards on Monday, we launched our website on February 13, and @punahamatatini has been tweeting now for 292 days. But what really made it tangible for me was the two-day research symposium we held last Thursday and Friday.
Logo
Over two days we asked our investigators to give three-minute ‘lightning’ talks (or lightning strikes as Peter Davis called them), one slide each, on the most exciting aspect of their research right now. This was a real success – it turns out there is a lot you can say in three minutes if you put your mind to it. We also heard from our project leaders on their plans and the PhD projects that will be offered, and heard talks from several outside organisations who we are keen to work with.
Alexei’s Slide
Have a look at the @punahamatini and @TPMwhanau twitter feeds if you want to see the range of topics we covered.
One of the talks we didn’t tweet about was the one given by Lillian Grace from Wiki New Zealand, who gave us a sneak preview of the new Wiki site and the engine behind it. Lillian is on a mission to increase data literacy in New Zealand – to democratize data as she puts it – by bringing together disparate streams of government data in one place and making the data sets easy to work with and present. The new site went live on Tuesday so you can go see what we were so impressed by at wikinewzealand.org. It is also worth mentioning that there is more to come – they will be rolling out several exciting new features over the next few months.
But what made Te Pūnaha Matatini feel most concrete for me last week was watching Rachelle Binny and her Whānau committee get together in the wāhi hui for a meeting after our symposium had finished. Rachelle is the first chair of our early career researcher network, our whānau, and it has been really quite wonderful to watch the way she is has started to inspire and lead this group of young, talented scientists. Te Pūnaha Matatini is no longer an idea owned by me, by our investigators, or by any of our institutions. It has been adopted and made real by the next generation of researchers.
Whānau