ACRI congratulates Marsden Grant Awardees

12 September 2006

ACRI congratulates Marsden Grant Awardees

The Association of Crown Research Institutes congratulates the 78 researchers awarded a total of $39.1 million in Marsden Fund grants for the next 2 to 3 years. Eight CRI researchers were awarded $3.7 million.

Marsden Fund grants support “excellent research and researchers” around ideas-driven research.

ACRI executive director Anthony Scott said all recipients deserved congratulations, but that he was particularly delighted with the success of the CRI researchers.

“CRI researchers focus on excellence around outcome-driven programmes, with research driven primarily by client requirements and strategic needs.

“Releasing and resourcing their best researchers to take time out to ‘follow their nose’ beyond their day to day work can be a hard task for CRIs.

“But the CRIs top researchers also need the time and resources simply to explore from time to time. The Marsden Fund allows that and also emphasises that CRI researchers are definitely amongst the nation’s best.”

Eight researchers from six CRIs received grants totaling $3.705 million over the next three years. These range from $140,000 over 2 years to $720,000 over 3 years.

Three are Fast Start grants for outstanding new researchers. These are in molecular biology, seismic events, and ecosystems.

The other five are researching DNA evidence, fluids and liquids in high-temperature superconductors and in nanoparticles; parasites, ecosystems and deep sea volcano eruptions. Two are as co-principal investigators with academics.

Marsden Fund
Research funded from the Marsden Fund is not subject to priorities set by the Government. The Fund enhances New Zealand’s underpinning knowledge base and broadens and deepens the research skill-base.

The Marsden Fund also provides for long-term and the sometimes serendipitous aspects of research. This may lead to profound or unexpected discoveries, or catalyse significant developments in previously-unrelated and strategically-important fields of knowledge.

Marsden Fund grants to CRI researchers
September 2006

Dr AR Pitman (Fast Start)
Crop & Food Research
Bacterial evolution in quantum leaps: The molecular basis for mobility of pathogenicity islands
• $140K over 2 years

Professor GR Midgley
Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR), with Dr VM Grace, University of Canterbury
CSI: New Zealand! The meanings of DNA evidence
• $624,000 over 3 years

Dr P Villamor-Perez (Fast Start)
GNS Science
Chicken or egg? The link between earthquakes and volcanic eruptions in New Zealand’s Taupo Volcanic Zone
• $140K over 2 years

Dr JL Tallon
Industrial Research Ltd
Quantum soup: What is the quantum fluid in high-temperature superconductors?
• $625,000 over 3 years

Dr SC Hendy
Industrial Research Ltd, with Dr B Ingham, Industrial Research Ltd
How small is a liquid? Precursors to melting in nanoparticles
• $730,000 over 3 years

Dr DM Tompkins
Landcare Research
Is parasite spillback a cause of local extinction in native communities?
• $586,110 over 3 years

Dr AML Lohrer (Fast Start)
NIWA (National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research)
Extending ecological function experiments to ecosystem scales
• $140,000 over 2 years

Professor CJN Wilson,
The University of Auckland with Dr IC Wright, NIWA
The dynamics of deep marine explosive volcanic eruptions: insights from the Kermadec Arc
• $720,000 over 3 years

ENDS

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