$249m for new research projects
$249m for new research projects
The Government is investing $249m in ambitious research projects that will improve the lives of New Zealanders and address some of the challenges we face as a country, says Research, Science and Innovation Minister Megan Woods.
The 69 new research projects were awarded funding through the 2018 round of the Endeavour Fund. This is New Zealand’s largest and most prestigious research and science contestable fund.
“The Endeavour Fund invests in excellent research that makes a vital contribution to New Zealand’s future economic performance, the sustainability and integrity of our environment, and the strength of our society,
“This year the Endeavour Fund is investing in improving our resilience to climate change, our transition to a low-emissions economy, monitoring of natural disasters, and protecting our biodiversity.”
Some
of the successful proposals receiving funding
include:
• Beyond myrtle rust: Next-generation
tools to ‘engineer’ forest ecosystem resilience to plant
pathogens (Landcare, $13,000,000 over 5 years)
•
Advancing New Zealand’s carbon inventory: forest,
grassland, and urban environments and ecoservices (NIWA,
$11,455,000 over 5 years)
• Impacts of
microplastics on New Zealand’s bioheritage systems,
environments and ecoservices (ESR, $12,536,205 over 5
years)
• Addressing the need for magnetic
memory to enable superconducting computing (Victoria
University of Wellington, $5,971,120 over 5 years)
•
Titanium Foam Thermal Shielding, Returning Small Payloads
from Space (University of Auckland, $999,714 over 3
years)
“Research and science helps us find solutions to
the challenges that we face in our changing world. It’s
essential that we tackle issues like climate change,
decarbonisation, threats to our biodiversity, and
microplastics in our oceans, so I look forward to seeing how
this work will inform our decision making and the actions we
take as a Government.
“Proposals are assessed and approved for funding by the Science Board, an independent board responsible for making decisions to allocate funding appropriated for research, science, technology and related activities,” says Woods.
The full list of successful projects is available here: https://www.mbie.govt.nz/info-services/science-innovation/funding-info-opportunities/investment-funds/endeavour-fund/document-image-library/successful-proposals-summary.pdf
See MBIE’s website for more details: http://www.mbie.govt.nz/about/whats-happening/news/2018/endeavour-fund-2018-results