In 2005 the New Zealand Tertiary Education Commission’s (TEC) put out a call for academic feedback on their Strategic Review of the Tertiary Education Workforce. Authors on this review provided a comprehensive review of the increasing reliance of tertiary institutes, particularly universities, on fixed-term contract staff, and the inherent risks for New Zealand science of relying on staff with unstable career structures and funding support. We explored some of the causes behind the transformation of the workforce from permanent to fixed-term, and recommended a suite of potential pathways to help address the challenges. This current review reports that nearly 20 years on very little has changed, and indeed the situation has gotten worse, with more researchers than ever before now on fixed-term contracts, even at senior levels. We have failed to establish and fund a career fellowship system. There has been a lack of substantive increases in funding for grants like Marsden and HRC that can sustain employment of research staff, and grant funding has not kept up with inflation. The net result is that we have essentially created a gig economy for research staff, with reliance on repeated contracts over many years, with few if any opportunities to transition to permanent positions. Researchers must write more and more grants to sustain their salaries as grants are insufficiently funded due to lack of investment leaving staff with either reducing the contract time or without a full salary for the full duration. Low funding rates due to lack of investment make it increasingly difficult to get funding to pay their salaries. Researchers see a bleak future, and the brain drain has begun. Students do not see a career in research as attractive and thus our capacity to develop the next generation of Kiwi scientists is at risk. This crisis threatens our ability to undertake and deliver science, technology and innovation that is essential for the growth of our economy. Urgent action is needed to address this fundamentally flawed approach to how we fund university based research and how we fail to support sustainable research careers.