SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27150, 21 September 1953, Page 7

SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH

USE OF CARNEGIE GRANT N.Z. UNIVERSITY PROJECTS (New Zealand. Press Association) WELLINGTON, September 18. The Carnegie Corporation’s social science research committee for New Zealand has decided on allocations for the first year of the five-year social science research scheme under the corporation's 60,000-dollar grant, the chairman of the committee (Dr. G. A. Currie), Vice-chancellor of the University of New Zealand stated today. The funds allocated for this year are 12,000 dollars. “It is extremely satisfactory that this grant has so stimulated social science workers,” said Dr. Currie, in noting some of the projects for which grants have been made. “The allocations have not been made on a geographical basis, but where the work can best be done and where there are most teachers in the field.” In New Zealand there was an annual grant of £15,000 for general scientific research within the university system, but so great were the requests that twice as much could be used, said Dr. Currie.

This grant and the help given by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, particularly to the agricultural colleges, represented the three main sources for university research apart from the Medical Research Council grants and moneys from the Nuffield Foundation, Dr. Currie said. Much more than the 12,000 dollars would have been required to meet all the applications for projects which covered the fields of law, economics, education, psychology, history, and philosophy. Varied Projects

An important project included was the study of the effects of technological change on a New Zealand Maori community—“an area study of folk culture under stress at Murupara and Kawarau,” said Dr. Currie.

Educationists from the University of Otago were to study “Hydro-town” and the culture of Roxburgh. A history project was the study of Pember Reeves and a geography project an appraisal of the resources of Samoa, with reference to its increasing population and advance in political status. A Dunedin historical project would cover New Zealand trade unionism, with one teacher spending an academic year on the study while being replaced by a junior lecturer, said Dr. Currie. A centennial history of early Canterbury is also included among the projects. A general election survey would be carried out at Victoria College, Wellington, in 1954.

One law project involved a survey, of New Zealand’s administrative tribunals and agencies, Dr. Currie said. An economics project would be a study of New Zealand’s progress from poverty, and an Auckland project was “the effect of the New Zealand Social Security programme on the distribution of personal income.” t