Search Marsden awards 2008–2017
Search awarded Marsden Fund grants 2008–2017
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2013
Title: Raw log exports from Tauranga: are they a necessary consequence of New Zealand's position at the end of the world's supply chain?
Recipient(s): Professor TML Olsen | PI | The University of Auckland
Public Summary: Unimproved exports, like the massive piles of raw logs at the Tauranga port, often look like a wasted opportunity to add value, and the New Zealand (NZ) government, with its move towards investing in high-value manufacturing instead, apparently agrees. But disinvesting in exports like raw logs to promote alternatives like high-value furniture goes against traditional supply chain (SC) strategy theory. That theory says raw exports are a logical consequence of NZ's remote position in the world's SC. Using a framework from the 1990s, it teaches that commodity-type products like logs or milk powder are best served by efficient SCs, while innovative high-value products like custom furniture or hypoallergenic baby formula are best served by responsive SCs that can react quickly to changing customer demand. More basically though, before we recommend government to apply it, is the theory sound? It has not been widely validated empirically, nor fully modelled mathematically, nor ever applied to NZ. We will explore the theory further, empirically test and adapt it using novel, high-quality NZ data, and mathematically model the key trade-offs. We aim, ambitiously, to understand the implications of SC strategy for evidence-based government investment in industry, particularly export industries in NZ, but also worldwide.
Total Awarded: $778,261
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Professor TML Olsen
Panel: SOC
Project ID: 13-UOA-079
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2014
Title: Re-placing commodity dependence: alternative sustainable and ethical value chains in the resource periphery
Recipient(s): Professor WE Murray | PI | Victoria University of Wellington
Professor J Overton | AI | Victoria University of Wellington
Associate Professor J Rehner | AI | Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile
Professor J Barton | AI | Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile
Public Summary: It has long been accepted that countries outside the cores of the global economy struggle to gain sustainable bases for economic development when they remain largely dependent on the export of primary commodities. Countries on the resource periphery have attempted to develop new export strategies that more secure and lucrative secure niches in the global economy. This research seeks to uncover the extent to which commodity dependency is being challenged in this way by the evolution of ethical value chains (EVCs). It focuses on three types of EVCs: fair trade, organic and place-based (Geographical Iindications - GI) production that construct and add value to natural resource-based sectors. Comparative studies of the fruit, fish and wine sectors will be conducted in five countries in Latin America, Australasia and South Africa in order to assess the potential and impacts of these new EVCs.
Total Awarded: $710,000
Duration: 3
Host: Victoria University of Wellington
Contact Person: Professor WE Murray
Panel: SOC
Project ID: 14-VUW-082
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2011
Title: Readily synthesised molecular actuator
Recipient(s): Dr JD Crowley | PI | University of Otago
Dr HM Zareie | AI | University of Technology Sydney
Public Summary: It has been widely predicted that nanotechnology has the potential to fuel the next industrial revolution. For this to come to fruition humans must develop the ability to exploit controlled molecular-level motion in the same way that biological nanomachines do. This proposal seeks to use controlled rotational molecular motion in the development of a novel synthetic molecular actuator and investigate ways of extrapolating the effects of motion at the molecular level through to the macroscopic world. The resulting molecular actuators will bring the development of functional synthetic nanomachines one step closer.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: University of Otago
Contact Person: Dr JD Crowley
Panel: PCB
Project ID: 11-UOO-239
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2012
Title: Ready for climate change? The ecophysiology of New Zealand kauri (Agathis australis) forests
Recipient(s): Dr CMO Macinnis-Ng | PI | The University of Auckland
Prof D Eamus | AI | University of Technology Sydney
Prof M Williams | AI | University of Edinburgh
Public Summary: Kauri (Agathis australis) forests are a unique and iconic natural feature of NZ. Dendrochronology studies tell us that kauri growth responds to climate yet the ecophysiological impact of climate change on kauri is uncertain. Kauri is associated with abundant rainfall and is prone to water stress so may be particularly threatened by increasingly frequent summer droughts. We will use measurement and modelling approaches to quantify physiological responses to soil moisture, solar radiation, vapour pressure deficit and rainfall and determine the impact of drought on function and survival of kauri and the associated podocarps tanekaha (Phylocladus trichmanoides) and totara, (Podocarpus totara). We will explore variation in productivity of kauri forests across a rainfall gradient to explore the role of water availability in forest carbon fluxes. Finally, we will use isotopic analysis of leaves and wood to explore changes in water-use-efficency over time and space to understand kauri responses to present and recent past climatic conditions.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Dr CMO Macinnis-Ng
Panel: EEB
Project ID: 12-UOA-057
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2011
Title: Realism, romance, and the settler colony: literary form, imperial territory and political economy, 1829-1915
Recipient(s): Dr P Steer | PI | Massey University
Public Summary: This project revises our understanding of colonial New Zealand literature, contending that it should be seen as inherently trans-national rather than merely pre-national. Victorian-era writers in New Zealand, Australia and Britain produced a global literature united by the circulation of genres, and I will argue that realism and romance in particular provided them with critical tools for testing the concepts of political economy and territoriality that underpinned this evolving Greater Britain. My research instils New Zealand literature with a new global relevance, positioning the settler colony as key to understanding fundamental aspects of Victorian Britain’s imperial literature and culture.
My research juxtaposes and analyses an interdisciplinary range of texts shaped by this antipodean Greater Britain, including novels by Samuel Butler and Anthony Trollope and non-fiction works by E. J. Wakefield and J. R. Seeley. I will argue that the changing way this transnational corpus employs realism and romance highlights a corresponding evolution in the Victorian understanding of colonial territory, from an economic to a geopolitical perspective. These texts exceed the national horizons that currently structure Victorian literary study, providing a striking example of nascent globalisation that revises our critical paradigms and challenges us to view our own globalising moment afresh.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: Massey University
Contact Person: Dr P Steer
Panel: HUM
Project ID: 11-MAU-017
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2008
Title: Rebuilding the cornea by cell transplantation
Recipient(s): Dr D Patel | PI | The University of Auckland
Prof CNJ McGhee | AI | The University of Auckland
Dr T Sherwin | AI | The University of Auckland
Public Summary: Sight is dependent upon light entering the eye through the cornea at the front, whose transparency is maintained by specialised cells termed keratocytes. We hypothesise that transplanting normal keratocyte progenitor cells (KPC) into diseased corneas will provide a unique and novel treatment modality that may slow, or reverse, the progression of corneal disease.
This project will isolate human KPC and transplant these cells into ex vivo human corneas. The ability of transplanted KPC to proliferate, migrate and regenerate corneal tissue will be investigated.
Total Awarded: $266,667
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Dr D Patel
Panel: BMS
Project ID: 08-UOA-018
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2013
Title: Recency effects in spoken New Zealand English
Recipient(s): Dr L Clark | PI | University of Canterbury
Public Summary: When we talk, we have a strong tendency to repeat the same grammatical structures that we have recently produced or heard. This phenomenon is known as ‘recency’, ‘persistence’, ‘repetition’ and ‘priming’, and it shows that where variation exists in language, an alternative form, once used, persists in working memory and has a greater chance of reuse next time. This finding is very important because it tells us more about the cognitive processes operating on language. It also sheds light on aspects of how languages vary and change. However, most previous research in this area has focused only on grammatical variation. This project examines the role of recency in pronunciation. I explore accent variation in two large spoken collections of New Zealand English – one of monologues and one of conversations. Specifically, I ask: can recency effects help explain patterns of pronunciation variation and change in speech? This work will shed light on the nature of speech production, sound change, and speech in interaction.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: University of Canterbury
Contact Person: Dr L Clark
Panel: HUM
Project ID: 13-UOC-032
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2012
Title: Recognition theory and the Christian tradition
Recipient(s): Dr MS Russell | PI | The University of Auckland
Public Summary: There are few more powerful drivers of human action than the desire for recognition—the longing to be understood, accepted, respected and esteemed. Not only is life more enjoyable when we experience relationships of care, dignity and affirmation, the evidence suggests our human flourishing depends upon it. This raises social and political questions: what would it look like for a modern democratic society to embody in its institutions and laws appropriate recognition for all, including marginalised groups such as indigenous communities, religious and ethnic minorities, the disabled, and the poor? Over the past twenty years “recognition theory” has emerged as a new field in social and political philosophy, and today it is establishing itself as an exciting and vibrant field of interdisciplinary research. This research project aims to broaden the horizons of recognition theory by considering for the first time how the connection between recognition and justice has been given literary and theological expression in the Christian tradition. The research will suggest new ways to integrate recognition theory into a theory of justice, and will help us imagine what it might look like for contemporary societies to embody appropriate forms of recognition in institutions and laws.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Dr MS Russell
Panel: HUM
Project ID: 12-UOA-040
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2013
Title: Reconstructing complex ground motion effects in Christchurch during the Canterbury earthquakes: what does this mean for future ground motion prediction?
Recipient(s): Dr AE Kaiser | PI | GNS Science
Dr RA Benites | AI | GNS Science
Dr AJ Haines | AI | GNS Science
Professor PM Mai | AI | King Abdullah University of Science & Technology
Public Summary: Understanding the way the ground will shake during future earthquakes is a fundamental goal of modern seismology and necessary to improving the resilience of society to earthquake effects. The Canterbury earthquake sequence provides an unprecedented opportunity to investigate how earthquake waves impact locally on a major city. Observed ground motions in Christchurch show complex patterns in space and time that we infer are due to heterogeneities in the uppermost layers of the earth. These variations over short distances cannot be predicted by current ground motion models, which have limited resolution at higher frequencies. We propose to use cutting-edge high-frequency scattering theory and an exceptionally dense (~2 km scale) aftershock dataset to investigate the character and importance of these complex wave propagation effects at low to damaging levels of shaking. Our goal is to explain local variations in ground shaking by employing novel approaches to incorporate these effects into ground motion simulations. This will provide a potential avenue to improve predictions of local earthquake shaking during future events.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: GNS Science
Contact Person: Dr AE Kaiser
Panel: ESA
Project ID: 13-GNS-035
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2012
Title: Recording the electrical activity of GnRH neurons in vivo
Recipient(s): Prof AE Herbison | PI | University of Otago
Dr S Constantin | PI | University of Otago
Public Summary: The gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) neurons are the key cells controlling fertility in all
mammalian species. This project aims to characterize the electrical activity of GnRH
neurons in vivo and determine how they generate pulsatile and surge patterns of reproductive
hormone secretion. Using a novel surgical approach, we have recently discovered that GnRH
neurons can be accessed from the base of the brain in anaesthetized GnRH-green fluorescent
protein transgenic mice. This provides the first-ever opportunity to make electrical recordings from GnRH neurons in vivo. Understanding how these cells control fluctuating levels of gonadotropin hormones in the blood will provide long-awaited foundations for developing new strategies for the beneficial regulation of fertility in humans.
Total Awarded: $847,826
Duration: 3
Host: University of Otago
Contact Person: Prof AE Herbison
Panel: BMS
Project ID: 12-UOO-030