$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

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