Shaun Hendy • Jul 23, 2010 •
In my job as deputy director of the MacDiarmid Institute, I regularly get to recount the story behind our Institute to all sorts of visitors. Last week I hosted a group of US scientists on Wednesday and a small Iranian science and technology delegation on Thursday. On Thursday this week I had the opportunity to introduce some of the … Read More
Shaun Hendy • May 28, 2010 •
In its budget releases earlier this month, the Government provided more details about the new Rutherford Discovery Fellowships. In particular, the funding for these Fellowships has been obtained by axing NZ S&T Post-Doctoral Fellowships, a scheme that brought myself and a number of my colleagues at the MacDiarmid Institute back to New Zealand early in our careers. As … Read More
Peter Griffin • May 11, 2010 •
The Government announced something to the tune of $234 million in new funding for science and R&D initiatives this morning, initiatives that will be included in the Budget on May 20. Businesses now have no excuse not to show some interest in R&D – there’ll even be a national network of commercialisation centres to help them translate … Read More
Shaun Hendy • Apr 12, 2010 •
One of the most important steps in a scientist’s career is their first post-doctoral fellowship. Science becomes something to be practised rather than studied, you get a salary not a scholarship, and you start paying taxes rather than tuition fees. At the end of the fellowship, a fellow will have established their own research direction, and will be capable of … Read More
Fabiana Kubke • Apr 09, 2010 •
Professor Keith A Hunter has published a statment on ‘Science, Climate Change and Integrity‘ in the Royal Society of New Zealand website. His position with respect to the controversies surrounding climate change issues are made clear, as is his call for a re-examination of attitudes on both sides of the argument. The controversies surrounding the [...] … Read More
Shaun Hendy • Feb 19, 2010 •
Last week, John Key signalled in a speech to Parliament that there would be changes to the way the Crown Research Institutes are funded. Indeed, the debate over CRI funding has continued pretty much unabated since they were created. In earlier posts, we looked at the growth in the total bibliometric output of the CRIs and … Read More
Gareth Renowden • Jan 13, 2010 •
This is a cross-post from Peter Griffin’s blog Griffin’s Gadgets over at Sciblogs. Peter (head of the NZ Science Media Centre), had the chance to explore some of the background to the intense lobbying being carried out on climate action (or inaction) when he met Bill Buzenberg, executive director of the Washington-based Centre for [...] … Read More
Shaun Hendy • Dec 29, 2009 •
2010 is shaping up to be a defining year for New Zealand’s RS&T system. We will be hearing how the Government will set its RS&T priorities and what these priorities will be. The CRI task force will be reporting back, and we will find out how the Government is going to encourage R&D in the business sector. As … Read More
Fabiana Kubke • Dec 06, 2009 •
These are some of the fun (and more serious) stuff I found around the magic world of the internet and Open Access. I give my favourite tweet this week to @MsBehaviour (again) for pointing her tweeps to the Manchester Manifesto. Her tweet links to a great post on the University of Manchester that summarises the issues [...] … Read More
Fabiana Kubke • Dec 01, 2009 •
At any given point in time there is a boundary between that which is known and that which is unknown and, precisely, the role of science is to grab pieces of that ignorance, study it, transform it into knowledge and, in doing so, broaden the human landscape.†Marcelino Cereijido [1] New Zealand science is facing a [...] … Read More