Search Marsden awards 2008–2017
Search awarded Marsden Fund grants 2008–2017
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2013
Title: Polymeric molecule sponges: a new generation of sorbent media with ultra-high binding affinity and selectivity
Recipient(s): Dr J Han | PI | The University of Auckland
Professor BJ Mariñas | AI | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Public Summary: Sorption recovery of hazardous chemical compounds from waste streams offers double benefits of waste decontamination and chemical recycling. This appealing concept, however, has been plagued by two major constraints of conventional porous sorbent media: low binding affinity and target selectivity. This Fast-Start project aims to explore a new path for sorbent material design by developing a new type of sorbent material which, unlike most porous sorbent media, offers high binding affinity and selectivity for target compounds in aqueous media. Rather than relying on artificially created porous structures, we utilise the intrinsic matrix structures of synthetic polymers as ‘hosts’ and their functional groups as ‘anchoring sites’ to activate strong and selective sorption for target compound molecules. By gaining insights into sorbate molecule transport and interaction in polymer matrix, we design a sorbate-hosting macromolecular structure that functions as a micro ‘molecule sponge’ in aqueous media by attracting, accommodating and selectively binding with target molecules. This project will enable me to develop my current pioneering research on polymeric hybrid sorption phenomena into a new research frontier in waste remediation technology, and further establish a New-Zealand-based global research network in this area through existing and future international collaboration.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Dr J Han
Panel: EIS
Project ID: 13-UOA-229
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2017
Title: Population Genomics of an Emergent Plant Infectious Disease
Recipient(s): Dr HC McCann | PI | Massey University Auckland
Distinguished Professor PB Rainey | AI | Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology
Dr KH Sohn | AI | Pohang University of Science and Technology
Public Summary: Disease emergence is a growing threat to agricultural productivity and food security worldwide. The bacterial plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae alone accounts for over 126 outbreaks on crops and ornamentals since 1997. Identifying the source and evolutionary processes involved in the emergence of crop diseases is of fundamental importance. Many infectious diseases have environmental or zoonotic origins, but such studies of bacterial plant pathogens are rare. Recurring outbreaks of P. syringae pv. actinidiae (Psa) over the last three decades - concomitant with the domestication of its kiwifruit (Actinidia spp.) host - offers the rare opportunity to identify how agricultural pathogens emerge from the wild. Using a large collection of Psa sampled from wild and cultivated kiwifruit across East Asia, I will identify the area with highest pathogen diversity, the timing of transmission events and genomic changes occurring in the ancestors of outbreak lineages. Target enrichment sequencing of wild kiwifruit will be employed to identify resistance gene polymorphism and ultimately determine how host-pathogen coevolutionary dynamics shape plant immunity in natural populations. The outcome of this work will contribute to our fundamental understanding of host-pathogen coevolution, informing outbreak prevention strategies and the development of durable resistance in important crop plants.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: Massey University Auckland
Contact Person: Dr HC McCann
Panel: EEB
Project ID: 17-MAU-161
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2011
Title: Post-research conversations as a means to overcome the impasse between ethics committees and social scientists
Recipient(s): Assoc Prof M Tolich | PI | Otago University
Dr H Devere | AI | Otago University
Dr B Poata Smith | AI | Lakes District Health Board
Public Summary: Since the Helsinki Agreement on ethical principles for human experimentation, ethics committees (ECs) have grown exponentially. International research on ethics review systems claims researchers are frustrated by the evolution of overly bureaucratic ECs which prioritise the protection of host institutions from litigation rather than the original intention of actually protecting human subjects. However, to date, research has focused primarily on developing universal solutions to these shortcomings which have proved less than useful in local contexts or in relation to indigenous values. This proposal takes a dramatically different approach: looking for sustainable solutions at the local interface between researchers and their ECs. This project uses innovative methodologies to investigate whether post-research, non-hierarchical conversations between researchers and ECs could render a more nuanced understanding of the problems. This opens up an interesting second line of enquiry: how researchers in Aotearoa/New Zealand engage with ethics processes within Treaty of Waitangi contexts. This is particularly relevant given emerging concerns that Maori values and concerns are not being given equal weight to other values in ethical deliberations. The desired research outcomes are to test the worth of local solutions to the global ethics impasse and to enhance conditions for indigenous research.
Total Awarded: $704,348
Duration: 3
Host: University of Otago
Contact Person: Assoc Prof M Tolich
Panel: SOC
Project ID: 11-UOO-088
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2008
Title: Postcolonialism and ethics
Recipient(s): Dr S Drichel | PI | University of Otago
Public Summary: This project shifts the terms of debate surrounding postcolonial studies from a political to an ethical paradigm. This shift to ethics does not displace politics but, paradoxically, increases its force. Ethics demands a persistent questioning of the identity categories upon which a postcolonial politics relies, making it an unlikely ally in the struggle against persisting colonial oppression. Countering orthodox postcolonial understandings, my study insists upon the unexpected power of this alliance. The study draws on the deconstructive philosophies of Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida to instigate an 'ethical turn' in postcolonialism which allows the field to realise its full political potential.
Total Awarded: $195,556
Duration: 3
Host: University of Otago
Contact Person: Dr S Drichel
Panel: HUM
Project ID: 08-UOO-016
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2016
Title: Power Politics: Electricity and Sustainability in Post-Disaster Ōtautahi (Christchurch)
Recipient(s): Associate Professor SD Matthewman | PI | The University of Auckland
Professor RH Byrd | AI | Unitec New Zealand
Dr CM Kenney | AI | Massey University
Public Summary: On an intensively urbanising planet facing unprecedented wealth disparities, global warming, “peak everything”, and the prospect of mass extinction, the question of how to live sustainably and equitably in cities assumes world-historical significance. Aotearoa New Zealand is one of the most urbanised nations in the world. Since the 1980s it has also seen the globe’s greatest increase in economic inequality. This project focuses on one energy infrastructure in one of its cities: electrical power in post-disaster Ōtautahi (Christchurch). Ordinarily, it is impossible to completely rebuild a city. The Canterbury earthquakes (2010, 2011) provided a unique chance to build afresh sustainably and equitably; to construct an inclusive and resilient electrical energy system capable of withstanding the shocks and stresses of future events like natural disasters and anthropogenic climate change. We examine why this has not happened. What are the barriers to participatory energy provision? Social studies of energy and infrastructures are underdeveloped relative to their significance. This research helps to redress this absence by advancing our understanding of energy systems as social systems. Lessons learned from the project will provide innovative understandings, practical guidance and policy considerations for those planning the transition to robust, transparent, equitable, and sustainable electrical power systems.
Total Awarded: $630,000
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Associate Professor SD Matthewman
Panel: SOC
Project ID: 16-UOA-118
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2014
Title: Power to the people? A comparative study of workplace reform in New Zealand
Recipient(s): Dr HL Nicholson | PI | The University of Auckland
Professor NA Haworth | AI | The University of Auckland
Public Summary: What role might work and the workplace have in mitigating the impacts of social inequality? This project considers the link between workplace practices and their subsequent effect on productivity, quality of work life, and the distribution of rewards. On the whole, there is little research that offers longitudinal and comparative studies of how workplace redesign could address rising income and social inequality. We focus in particular on how sharing control, knowledge, responsibility, and reward more equally in the workplace may impact on the quality of working life, on workers’ rights, and on enterprise performance and productivity. As such, the project undertakes a discursive analysis of the history of workplace participation in New Zealand, and compares the current mind-set and practices with other countries. We will also study three large New Zealand organisations implementing workplace participation practices in partnership with trade unions and an international consulting firm. Our findings will contribute to academic knowledge about the changing fortunes of worker rights and participation in a contemporary market system. It will also contribute to a much-needed understanding of how worker voice intersects with enterprise performance and social inequality in New Zealand.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Dr HL Nicholson
Panel: SOC
Project ID: 14-UOA-013
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2016
Title: Power to the People? Investigating the Politics and Resilience of Community Energy Initiatives in New Zealand, the UK, and Denmark
Recipient(s): Dr JL MacArthur | PI | The University of Auckland
Public Summary: Climate change is humanity’s most pressing and complex challenge. Binding global agreements have failed to materialize, while each year heat records are shattered and carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere continue to rise. Even when national governments take action in areas like renewable energy, reversals due to cost concerns and ideology are commonplace. Environmental policy researchers have long suspected that a missing link to tackling our emissions impact relies on mobilizing social and economic resources in innovative ways, ones that are effective, just and participatory. While most research on renewables highlights technical solutions, this project analyzes the key role that local citizen engagement plays in shaping effective climate action in renewable energy and efficiency.
This project investigates the potential of community energy initiatives—such as co-operative solar projects, Māori geothermal generation, and non-profit home retrofits—to strengthen low-carbon transitions in three countries: Denmark, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Drawing from new international comparative data, I examine the distinct project forms, the actors, and the collective power these groups have to shape public policy from the ground up. It provides a fresh insight into effective climate action in New Zealand and the creation of more democratic and sustainable societies.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Dr JL MacArthur
Panel: SOC
Project ID: 16-UOA-185
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2017
Title: Predict to decide: Investigating decision markets in theory, experiments and practical applications
Recipient(s): Professor T Pfeiffer | PI | Massey University Auckland
Professor A Chaudhuri | AI | University of Auckland
Professor Y Chen | AI | Harvard University
Professor A Dreber | AI | Stockholm School of Economics
Professor AM Slinko | AI | The University of Auckland
Public Summary: Knowledge in society is often dispersed, with different individuals holding different pieces of information. If aggregated correctly, this information can beat that of any single individual, an idea captured by the expression “wisdom of the crowd”. There is considerable interest in harnessing this wisdom for forecasting and decision-making. Prediction markets are popular tools to “crowd-source” distributed information for forecasts. Such forecasts can be very valuable for decision makers. Commercial companies, for instance, can benefit tremendously from accurate forecasts regarding the future demand for their products. Many decision-making problems, however, require more than just a peek into the future - they require conditional forecasts. To decide, for instance, between alternative marketing campaigns, a company needs to understand how each of the alternatives will affect sales. Finding mechanisms that properly incentivise participants to provide their information for such conditional forecasts is non-trivial, but can be done through so-called decision markets. Decision markets have only recently been described in theory. The aims of the proposed project are to investigate fundamental theoretical properties of decision markets and their relation to alternative decision-making mechanisms such as voting; to provide a proof-of-concept regarding their functioning in human-subject experiments; and to test them in practical applications.
Total Awarded: $735,000
Duration: 3
Host: Massey University Auckland
Contact Person: Professor T Pfeiffer
Panel: EHB
Project ID: 17-MAU-133
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2015
Title: Predicting a sea change: Antarctic ice-ocean interactions in a warming world
Recipient(s): Associate Professor NAN Bertler | PI | Victoria University of Wellington
Dr RM McKay | PI | Victoria University of Wellington
Dr NR Golledge | AI | Victoria University of Wellington
Professor H Conway | AI | University of Washington, Seattle
Professor L Carter | AI | Victoria University of Wellington
Professor MH England | AI | University of New South Wales
Professor RB Dunbar | AI | Stanford University
Public Summary: During the Mid Pliocene, 3-5 million years ago, high carbon dioxide concentrations (400 parts per million) caused vulnerable margins of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets to collapse, raising global sea level by at least 10 m. In 2013, the Earth's atmosphere registered for the first time since then equally high atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. So, how and when will the ice sheets and the surrounding Southern Ocean respond? Increased wind-driven upwelling of deep ocean water onto the adjacent continental margin is suggested as the major driver to melt ice shelves and destabilise ice sheets, highlighting the complex atmosphere to ocean to ice interactions. This project will integrate data from two new, annually layered records of past climate conditions preserved in a coastal ice core (RICE) and a marine sediment (IODP-U1357) record. This will enable the reconstruction of concurrent changes in the atmosphere, ocean, and ice sheet through past warm periods and grounding line retreat. Supported by ocean / ice sheet model experiments, this will allow us to determine the response of the Antarctic ice sheets and the surrounding ocean with the aim to identify the key mechanisms and feedbacks to improve projections of Antarctica's response in the 21st Century.
Total Awarded: $810,000
Duration: 3
Host: Victoria University of Wellington
Contact Person: Associate Professor NAN Bertler
Panel: ESA
Project ID: 15-VUW-131
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2013
Title: Predicting properties of pericardium: from optics to mechanics
Recipient(s): Dr JWY Jor | PI | The University of Auckland
Professor PMF Nielsen | AI | The University of Auckland
Professor MS Sacks | AI | The University of Texas at Austin
Public Summary: The unique mechanical properties of calf pericardium, the thin membrane surrounding the heart, render it an ideal biomaterial to use in making replacement heart valves for humans. However, the functional performance and durability of bioprosthetic heart valves have been hampered by a fundamental lack of understanding of the relationship between mechanical properties and the underlying collagen microstructure of pericardium. In particular, there are currently no non-destructive techniques that allow the mechanical properties of biomembranes to be determined.
We believe that the mechanical properties of biomembranes can be predicted via a model-based approach using non-destructive optical measurements of the collagen microstructure. We will develop an integrative framework combining optical imaging, bioinstrumentation and computational modelling, to quantify for the first time, the links between optical, structural and mechanical properties of pericardium. Knowledge gained from this study will impact the selection of pericardial tissues suitable for making replacement heart valves, and also shed light on the characterisation and design of other tissue-engineered biomembranes for a broad range of clinical applications.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Dr JWY Jor
Panel: EIS
Project ID: 13-UOA-307