University of Canterbury snares 10% of Marsden Funding

University of Canterbury (UC) researchers have snared almost 10 per cent of the Marsden Fund research grants announced today.

Eight successful UC proposals, covering Physics, Astronomy, Psychology, Engineering, Linguistics and Chemistry, were awarded $5.24 million of the $65.1 million funding. This year’s awards represent an increase of $1.1m from 2015.

More than 20 institutes made funding bids, including all eight New Zealand Universities and eight Crown Research Institutes.

UC Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation Professor Ian Wright says the latest Marsden Fund grants are a further acknowledgement of UC as a world-class research-led teaching and learning University.

“UC continues to cement itself as a place where world-class research happens, as these grants attest. The benefit for students coming to UC is that they are taught by academics from New Zealand and abroad who are world leaders in their respective fields. I remain highly impressed by the very high calibre of UC researchers to create ideas that are funded in this prestigious but highly competitive fund”.

The UC Marsden funded research announced today includes:

• Counting the number and distribution of planets in the galaxy ($870,000)

• The importance of non-additive competition in diverse natural plant communities ($795,000)

• An artificial algebra for implicit learning of Mathematical Science ($705,000)

• Brain inspired on-chip computation using self-assembled nanoparticles ($300,000)

• Unique acoustic signatures to diagnose impending Dysfunction of Osteo-Mechanics ($300,000)

• New methods for imaging biological macromolecules using x-ray free-election lasers ($865,000)

• What is the Southland accent? ($530,000)

• A new paradigm for organelle targeting ($870,000)

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