Search Marsden awards 2008–2017
Search awarded Marsden Fund grants 2008–2017
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2012
Title: Investing in rural China: New Zealand agribusiness and the local global nexus
Recipient(s): Dr JA Young | PI | Victoria University of Wellington
Public Summary: Foreign direct investment (FDI) has been critical to the Chinese economic miracle, a driving force behind domestic reforms toward a market economy and an important site of interaction and learning for international companies operating in the Chinese market. Much debate however remains on how foreign investment impacts a developing state and how this can be measured. The role of FDI in rural Chinese development remains critically understudied. As central and local government implement policy to attract international agribusinesses to the developing agricultural sector this debate has taken on a new importance for Chinese development. This research uses New Zealand agribusinesses as cases to develop a model and a more nuanced understanding of how international agribusinesses interact with local conditions in rural China. This will be achieved through institutional analysis that incorporates qualitative and quantitative data, including interviews, secondary and primary source data collection and trade, investment and development statistics. Two detailed case studies of Fonterra and Maori businesses will be carried out in Hebei and Guizhou provinces to provide a comparison of investment in developed and developing rural regions. This will contribute to our understanding of international agribusiness operations and the role of investment in the development of rural China.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: Victoria University of Wellington
Contact Person: Dr JA Young
Panel: SOC
Project ID: 12-VUW-124
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2014
Title: Investment in physical capital: the effects of competition and uncertainty
Recipient(s): Professor GA Guthrie | PI | Victoria University of Wellington
Public Summary: This project investigates the investment behaviour of firms and how that behaviour is affected by the economic environment in which firms operate. Individual firms concentrate a large proportion of their investment expenditure into a few episodes, spread out over time. Firms must therefore decide when to expand and by how much. They must weigh the cost savings of investing in a few large steps against the benefits of investing in small steps and retaining the flexibility to react to uncertain future events. They must also consider the effects their investment will have on their competitors’ behaviour.
Models of investment decision-making in such a complex setting have been developed only recently. This project uses a framework called real-options analysis to investigate the behavioural implications of uncertainty about the future, changes over time in the degree of this uncertainty, and the interactions between firms and their competitors. For example: Do short, sharp shocks have long-lasting effects on investment behaviour? Do the abilities of markets to sustain competition change in response to the small long-lasting shocks that characterize business cycles? Does regulating pricing and investment behaviour deliver better outcomes for society as a whole than the discipline provided by competition between firms?
Total Awarded: $400,000
Duration: 3
Host: Victoria University of Wellington
Contact Person: Professor GA Guthrie
Panel: EHB
Project ID: 14-VUW-159
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2009
Title: Iron's role in the enzyme cysteine dioxygenase: mechanism and biological relevance
Recipient(s): Dr GNL Jameson | PI | University of Otago
Dr SM Wilbanks | AI | University of Otago
Public Summary: Levels of iron and the amino acid cysteine are tightly controlled in healthy cells but change markedly during the onset of Parkinson's Disease. Cysteine concentrations are regulated by the enzyme Cysteine Dioxygenase but Cysteine Dioxygenase is regulated by both iron and cysteine. We will gain insight into this reciprocal relationship by studying how iron and cysteine activate Cysteine Dioxygenase and how Cysteine Dioxygenase uses iron to break cysteine down. Our expertise in freeze-quench and Mossbauer spectroscopy gives us a unique opportunity to study this important enzyme.
Total Awarded: $720,000
Duration: 3
Host: University of Otago
Contact Person: Dr GNL Jameson
Panel: PSE
Project ID: 09-UOO-069
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2011
Title: Is algal photosynthesis sustainable? Nitrous oxide synthesis by microalgae and its consequence for the algae industry
Recipient(s): Dr BJ Guieysse | PI | Massey University
Dr MA Packer | AI | Cawthron Institute
Professor AN Shilton | AI | Massey University
Public Summary: At a time when billions of dollars are being invested into developing algae biotechnologies, our team has recently established that microalgae could release significant amounts of nitrous oxide (N2O), a powerful greenhouse gas also considered as the “dominant ozone-depleting substance emitted in the 21st Century” (Science, 2009, 326, 123-15).
We believe microalgae generate nitrous oxide when nitrite accumulates inside microalgae cells, a situation that can frequently occur during commercial algae cultivation. In this context, our research will seek to elucidate the pathway of nitrous oxide synthesis by microalgae and develop a model that can predict the magnitude of these emissions during algae cultivation.
This research will provide a new foundation for understanding how nitrous oxide is released in aquatic environments and may challenge the current consensus that bacteria are responsible for most of the N2O biologically emitted into the atmosphere. This new knowledge also has the potential to trigger a paradigm shift in the rapidly growing microalgae industry.
Total Awarded: $673,913
Duration: 3
Host: Massey University
Contact Person: Dr BJ Guieysse
Panel: EIS
Project ID: 11-MAU-038
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2017
Title: Is individual variation relevant to population dynamics?
Recipient(s): Professor DP Armstrong | PI | Massey University Manawatu
Dr JG Ewen | PI | Zoological Society, London
Professor RJ Barker | AI | University of Otago
Dr KA Parker | AI | Parker Conservation
Public Summary: What is the optimal level of complexity to consider when predicting population dynamics? The conventional wisdom is to keep models as simple as possible. However, the recent explosion of research on individual variation in animal personalities and life history traits is increasing our capacity to generate complex individual-based models of population dynamics. But will this increased complexity significantly improve our capacity to predict population dynamics, justifying the need for detailed individual-based monitoring in threatened species programmes? Our project will answer this question using our multiple long-term data sets for reintroduced robin and hihi populations, combined with new data relating personality traits to demographic rates.
Total Awarded: $870,000
Duration: 3
Host: Massey University Manawatu
Contact Person: Professor DP Armstrong
Panel: EEB
Project ID: 17-MAU-091
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2013
Title: Is New Zealand betting on the wrong horse in the international innovation race? The importance of market innovations for small open economies
Recipient(s): Professor KE Storbacka | PI | The University of Auckland
Dr SM Nenonen | PI | The University of Auckland
Dr CM Windahl | AI | The University of Auckland
Public Summary: The dominant view of growth and wellbeing says New Zealand (NZ) should invest primarily in research and development (R&D), in order to create new technologies and high-value products and services. An emerging view, emanating from the Nordic countries, suggests that this is not enough and that a more cost-effective way to grow is to design new markets and shape existing ones. Such market innovation is important for small open (trade-based) economies, which have to be smart in using their limited resources. So far market innovation has lacked well-developed theoretical support. However, social sciences offer deeper insights. Building on economic sociology’s view of markets as social systems, we suggest that markets can be deliberately shaped by manipulating facets of the market system. We aim to make this underdeveloped line of research both rigorous and relevant. By drawing on multiple disciplines and carrying out case studies in NZ and three other small open economies, we will develop a framework identifying the capabilities needed to innovate markets. As an immediate application we will identify gaps in NZ firms’ capabilities and recommend actionable ways for businesses and policymakers to fill them. More fundamentally, this research will contribute to a new theory of the market.
Total Awarded: $673,913
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Professor KE Storbacka
Panel: SOC
Project ID: 13-UOA-137
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2015
Title: Is the Southern Ocean carbon sink sinking? Using records of atmospheric radiocarbon to characterise the response of the Southern Ocean to climate change
Recipient(s): Dr JC Turnbull | PI | GNS Science
Dr SE Mikaloff-Fletcher | PI | NIWA - The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd
Dr AM Smith | AI | Australian Nuclear Science & Technology Organisation
Dr HD Graven | AI | Imperial College
Dr Q Hua | AI | Australian Nuclear Science & Technology Organisation
Mr GW Brailsford | AI | NIWA - The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd
Ms MW Norris | AI | GNS Science
Public Summary: The Southern Ocean absorbs a large portion of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted to the atmosphere by human activities, but this key carbon sinks response to climate change remains uncertain. Atmospheric CO2 inversions and global ocean models suggest a long-term decline in Southern Ocean sink efficiency but recent global atmospheric CO2 trends and gradients imply the opposite. The radiocarbon content of atmospheric CO2 (14C) responds dramatically to changes in ocean circulation processes that govern this carbon-climate feedback and the recently developed 14C interhemispheric gradient supports an increasing Southern Ocean carbon sink. Yet current 14C observations are insufficient to diagnose the underlying mechanisms responsible or to rule out other explanations.
We will use existing and new Southern Hemisphere atmospheric 14C observations combined with hypothesis-testing atmospheric model scenarios to determine the drivers of the changing 14C interhemispheric gradient. We will use process model simulations, ocean and satellite data to diagnose the underlying process mechanisms driving this change. These results will provide a much-needed constraint on how Southern Ocean sink efficiency has changed and the implications for future atmospheric CO2 levels and the Earth's climate.
Total Awarded: $810,000
Duration: 3
Host: GNS Science
Contact Person: Dr JC Turnbull
Panel: ESA
Project ID: 15-GNS-012
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2008
Title: Is understanding innovation the key to explaining economic growth?
Recipient(s): Prof P McCann | PI | University of Waikato
Prof LT Oxley | AI | University of Canterbury
Public Summary: What causes growth? Our research aims to uncover the role played by innovation in growth and development, and to identify the causative factors in the innovation and growth process. Our approach is interdisciplinary, drawing on economics, economic geography and economic history, and employs both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Due to unique data coverage and availability, and also the unusual geographical and structural features of the New Zealand economy, we are able to use New Zealand as a test case for examining fundamental theoretical questions regarding the relationships between innovation and growth.
Total Awarded: $626,667
Duration: 3
Host: University of Waikato
Contact Person: Prof P McCann
Panel: EHB
Project ID: 08-UOW-022
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2011
Title: Isolated planetary mass objects in the Galaxy: alien worlds between stars
Recipient(s): Dr IA Bond | PI | Massey University
Associate Professor DP Bennett | PI | University of Notre Dame
Dr T Sumi | PI | Osaka University
Professor A Udalski | PI | Warsaw University
Associate Professor F Abe | AI | Nagoya University
Associate Professor PCM Yock | AI | The University of Auckland
Public Summary: Recently we found a population of “free-floating” planets that appear not to be orbiting stars. Instead, they roam interstellar space. They could have formed in normal planetary systems and subsequently been ejected in gravitational interactions. A small population of such planets had long been anticipated, but, remarkably, our observations imply a large population, outnumbering stars by a factor of about two or more, thus implying that the process of planet formation is surprisingly chaotic. The new planets were found by a technique of Einstein in which the gravitational fields of stars are used as astronomical lenses. Previously we used this technique to study planets orbiting stars beyond their “snowlines” where ices form. Our results complemented those obtained on warmer planets by conventional methods. The free-floating planets were discovered as gravitational lenses of weaker power than stellar lenses. The discovery measurements were sensitive to free-floating planets of about Jupiter’s mass or more. In this project we shall improve the sensitivity to enable lighter free-floating planets to be detected. These may be more prevalent, and it has been conjectured that some could be habitable. We shall also extend our former studies of planets orbiting stars to include lighter planets.
Total Awarded: $621,739
Duration: 3
Host: Massey University
Contact Person: Dr IA Bond
Panel: ESA
Project ID: 11-MAU-032
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2008
Title: Isopeptide bonds: a novel component of Nature's toolbox for stabilising proteins
Recipient(s): Prof EN Baker | PI | The University of Auckland
Public Summary: This research will exploit our recent discovery of internal isopeptide bonds that give extraordinary stability to certain bacterial cell surface proteins. We believe that these covalent cross-links do occur in other proteins. We wish to verify this, and to establish how such bonds are formed and how much they contribute to stability. Our ultimate goal is to see whether super-stable proteins can be produced by engineering isopeptide bonds as a 'molecular glue' into proteins that do not have them. The research addresses fundamental mechanisms of protein stability and has potential for stabilising proteins for biotechnology.
Total Awarded: $746,667
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Prof EN Baker
Panel: PSE
Project ID: 08-UOA-039