Rutherford Discovery Fellowships
The Rutherford Discovery Fellowships were a primary funding mechanism for early-to-mid-career academics in New Zealand. Established in 2010, they were administered by the Royal Society Te Apārangi and awarded yearly, via a multi-round peer-review and interview process, and funded by money diverted from the axed Foundation for Research, Science and Technology Postdoctoral Fellowships. Recipients of the fellowship were typically faculty members at New Zealand universities, or appointed in Fellow roles, a position comparable to "research faculty" or "senior postdoc" in the United States. In 2025, the fellowship scheme was replaced with the New Zealand Mana Tūānuku Research Leader Fellowship.
The Ministry of Science and Innovation commissioned a review of the scheme in 2011, following a public letter raising concerns about a gap in early and mid-career support for researchers. The review, conducted by the government Social Wellbeing Agency, interviewed fellows, the selection panel, and representatives from host institutions and the Royal Society. A draft report is available but the final report and recommendations do not appear to have been made public.
Major contributions across research fields
More than a dozen Rutherford Discovery Fellowships were awarded every year, and by the final 2023 round life-sciences and humanities projects each accounted for 42 per cent of the portfolio, with the remainder in the physical sciences, engineering and mathematics.The breadth of topics funded, and the influence fellows have gone on to exert in their disciplines, illustrates the scheme's strategic role in New Zealand’s research ecosystem.
Biomedical and health sciences. University of Auckland neuro-immunologist Dr Justin Rustenhoven is tracing how age-related inflammation damages the meningeal lymphatic “drain-pipes” of the brain, work that points to new therapeutic targets for Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.
Climate and marine science. Massey University marine ecologist Dr Libby Liggins is combining genomics, ocean-current modelling and citizen-science "fish watches" to identify tohu—early genetic and distributional signals—of climate-driven shifts in Aotearoa's coastal biodiversity, providing communities and mana whenua with data for proactive kaitiakitanga.
Green chemistry and clean technology. Organometallic chemist Dr Mathew Anker is designing lanthanide hydride catalysts able to fix atmospheric nitrogen at ambient pressure, a step towards fossil-fuel-free ammonia fertiliser production and a potential one-per-cent cut in global CO₂ emissions.
Computer science and software engineering. Dr Kelly Blincoe is leading the first longitudinal study of Aotearoa's software workforce to understand why women leave the industry and to create more inclusive development tools and practices, research that also informs ACM diversity policy worldwide.
Public-health and social equity research. Psychologist Dr Jaimie Veale is extending the national "Counting Ourselves" survey into a multi-wave international study that tracks how access to gender-affirmation and other social determinants shape the health of transgender and non-binary people.
Indigenous politics and civic participation. Associate Professor Lara Greaves is co-creating tools with Māori communities to lift voter turnout, improve access to political information and strengthen data sovereignty—work that addresses structural barriers to participation for wāhine Māori and other under-represented groups.
Individual fellowships have also seeded internationally recognised advances in the physical sciences; for example, laser physicist Dr Miro Erkintalo’s 2015 award preceded his Prime-Minister’s MacDiarmid Emerging Scientist Prize for micro-comb technology.
Collectively, the programme created a pipeline of independent research leaders whose work now underpins national capability in everything from pandemic modelling to quantum photonics, demonstrating the long-term value of sustained, investigator-led funding.
Replacement by Tāwhia te Mana Research Fellowships
In July 2023, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment announced a new workforce-support initiative that would "retire" the Rutherford Discovery, Rutherford Foundation and James Cook Research Fellowships after the 2023 funding rounds.
From 2024 onward, early-, mid- and established-career researchers would instead compete for three Māori-named awards grouped under the Tāwhia te Mana Research Fellowships portfolio:
- Mana Tūāpapa Future Leader Fellowship
- Mana Tūānuku Research Leader Fellowship
- Mana Tūārangi Distinguished Researcher Fellowship