The National Science Challenges (NSC) are 11 ten-year collaborative science programmes in New Zealand, established in 2014. They are "cross-disciplinary, mission-led programmes designed to tackle New Zealand’s biggest science-based challenges", and are funded through the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.^[1]

The NSC initiative was developed over 2012–13 by the New Zealand government's Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) as a restructure of national scientific research funding.^[2] Established in advance of the 2014 general election, the Challenges were funded with $680.8 million over ten years, broken into two five-year phases.^[3][4] The science challenges they address were intended to be "the most important national-scale issues facing New Zealand".^[4] The challenges are collaborative and multi-disciplinary, creating new teams of researchers drawn from universities and other research institutions, iwi, Crown Research Institutes, businesses, community organisations, and NGOs.^[5]

The Challenges share five principles, summarised by MBIE as:^[3]

1. Mission-led
2. Science quality
3. Best research team collaboration
4. Stakeholder engagement & public participation
5. Māori involvement and mātauranga

The selection process involved a period of public consultation over late 2012–early 2013, and then selection by a "peak panel" of researchers, chaired by Peter Gluckman.^[2][6] The selection panel consisted of William Denny, Ian Ferguson, Peter Hunter, Mary O’Kane, Jacqueline Rowarth, Richie Poulton, Charles Royal, David Penman, Elf Eldridge, and Rachael Wiltshire.^[7]

The first phase of funding from 2013 to 2018 led to eleven Challenges being established beginning in 2014; the last was launched on 5 May 2016. At the midway review in 2018 the Challenges received their second tranche of funding ($320 million) to last from 1 July 2019 to 30 June 2024.^[4]

Expert reaction to the review highlighted concerns over the way the challenges were initially selected, and whether the cost of governance means more could have been achieved through investing in existing funding mechanisms. The president of the New Zealand Association of Scientists, Heide Friedrich, said “The New Zealand Association of Scientists has concerns if the review process asked the right questions, given the recommendation is to approve the second tranche of funding without changes." Shaun Hendy commented that "After some public input, the National Science Challenges were more or less selected by a panel led by Sir Peter Gluckman but most of us still find this process rather mysterious."^[8]

A 2016 critique of the programme asserted that although "Māori involvement and mātauranga" is one of the core principles of their establishment, the National Science Challenges "moved to marginalize input by Māori researchers. Māori research approaches and complaints were recorded by the MBIE in NSC documents, but not substantively addressed".^[2] Subsequently the organisation Rauika Māngai was created, a group of Māori researchers representing the eleven National Science Challenges and Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga (Aotearoa New Zealand’s Centre of Māori Research Excellence). Rauika Māngai worked with the Challenges to improve partnerships with Māori communities and implement the 2020 Vision Mātauranga policy.^[9]