Yeah, I noticed this, too.
Speculating if the reason is lack of suitable applications. The ME research ecosystem in NZ is so limited there may not be any obvious pathways - like qualified supervisors - for Masters or PhD students to follow outside the couple of very small existing teams - and those are already being supported by ANZMES separately so there may be issues of conflict of interest, or perception thereof, of awarding additional grants or scholarships to them. Or maybe their leaders are part of the committee deciding on applications so again, conflict of interest
To be clear, I don't know any of this, just speculating. But if my speculations are somewhat close to the truth, how could this be addressed?
I wonder if giving out fewer but larger grants would help? The scholarship amount seems about right but maybe a bigger grant? for example 1 grant of up to $60,000 - if justifiable project costs can be demonstrated - and then only 2 scholarships of $5,000 each. Still doesn't solve the issue of lack of suitable supervisors
Based on the publicly available info two of the current projects look ok to me.
The food insecurity issue needs documenting. I hope they include the problems very severe pwME have in accessing feeding support (it doesn't say in the project description). I also like their sideline of gauging interest in a registry. I'm not sure if a registry would be worth the resources that would need to be spend on it but I think it should be explored. Though the investigators appear overly optimistic when it comes to what a registry can achieve. They're quoted as saying
"Respondents will also be asked if they would like to be included in an ME/CFS Registry – it is essential that we start to count how many people are living with ME/CFS." While I agree with the sentiment I struggle to see how a voluntary registry could give us any good prevalence data (for discussion on patient registries, see
this thread)
The Masters psych project looking into supportive care could be worthwhile especially if it includes looking at how to provide such care in culturally appropriate ways (it doesn't say in the project description). If the student goes on to become a practitioner competent in helping rather than harming pwME, and if she then goes on to advocate among her future colleagues, that would be a win.
I'm baffled though by the other Masters project. Just what is another systematic review of exercise in ME going to achieve at this point? There is no new "high-quality evidence" on which to base any exercise recommendations