Marsden Fund success for University of Canterbury researchers

 

Published by the Communications and Development Department

 

8 October 2004

 

The University of Canterbury has the second highest average value in this year’s Marsden Fund research grants, which have been allocated to more than a dozen universities, crown research organisations and private research companies.

 

Canterbury University has secured grants for six research projects, totalling $3.316 million.

 

The total value of this year’s awards, which will be paid over the next three years, is $33.2 million.

 

One UC recipient, Dr Ian Scott, has been awarded a $140,000 Marsden Fast-Start grant, designed to give emerging researchers the chance to explore an innovative idea, develop their capabilities and establish a research career.

Using Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection as a starting point, he will investigate a phenomenon known as adaptation, in which traits evolve to function better in a given context/environment.

Dr Scott will investigate changes in genetic diversity in frog populations over time by comparing DNA samples taken both before and after exposure to a disease-causing fungus.

 

Professor Les Oxley (Economics) and Professor David Thorns (Sociology and Anthropology) will use their $641,081 grant to consider the winners and losers in the knowledge society. Associate Professor Dave Kelly (Biological Sciences) has been awarded an $825,000 grant to seek answers to why the seed crops of many plants vary in size from year to year. His is a joint project with the NZ Forest Research Institute. Dr Philip Armstrong (Culture, Literature and Society) and Dr Annie Potts (Culture, Literature and Society) have a $465,000 grant to examine the ways in which interactions between humans and animals reflect and shape important social and cultural issues.

Professor Leon Phillips (Chemistry) is to lead a concerted experimental and theoretical attack on outstanding problems in the field of gas-liquid exchange, especially in relation to the chemistry of urban air pollution and the rate of air-sea exchange of greenhouse gases.

 

The Marsden Fund is a government fund, administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand.

 

For further information please contact:

John MacDonald
Communications Manager
University of Canterbury

Tel: +64-3-364 2910
Fax: +64-3-364 2679
Mob: +64-27-441 7280
john.macdonald@canterbury.ac.nz