Networks to foster knowledge
INYS project researcher at Craigieburn Forest. Image – Cissy Pan.
Networking with colleagues and scientific organisations in New Zealand and overseas is one of the most fundamental ways that staff ensure they are at the forefront of their field. Networks may be the result of strategic management decisions (such as our co–location and links with universities) or they may simply be the product of serendipitous meetings at international conferences. Whatever form networks take, they offer opportunities to share resources and foster the knowledge, intellectual curiosity and investigative capabilities that are the lifeblood of our scientists.
Links with universities & CRIs
Our five largest sites are located on or close to university campuses, and four of these sites are co–located with or near other CRIs. There is increasing focus on collaborative centres as a means of sharing and developing capability; the New Zealand Centre for Ecological Economics (NZCEE) is a joint venture between Landcare Research and Massey University; the Centre for Urban Environmental Sustainability (CUES) and the Centre for Biodiversity & Biosecurity (CBB) are partnerships with the University of Auckland. During the year we joined the Centre of Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration (CBER), led by the University of Waikato, and the newly formed New Zealand Climate Change Centre, which involves all nine CRIs, University of Canterbury and Victoria University of Wellington. During the year we established a Landcare Research professorial chair at Lincoln University, to complement the one at Massey University, for one of our senior staff to foster links with teaching and postgraduate development in environmental sciences.
Māori networks
Landcare Research has had a strong track record of working with Māori, either directly involving them in research or through consultation when research occurs on Māori–owned land. In addition to networks linked to research programmes, our Māori staff participate in science and support networks within Landcare Research and also across CRIs and universities. This year one of our Māori researchers is spending seven months at Trent University in Canada working on environmental contamination issues and further developing indigenous networks and research linkages with Guelph, Toronto and Trent universities. As a result of that fellowship, Landcare Research hosted a group of First Nations academics from Guelph and Toronto universities on a study tour in New Zealand.
International networks
Landcare Research encourages staff to establish international networks despite the travel adding to our carbon footprint. Where possible we use videoconferencing and have had good experiences linking overseas in this way. We also foster regular exchanges of staff via a wide range of fellowships.
During the year we linked with the British Council as part of the International Networking for Young Scientists (INYS) programme on sustainable consumption and low impact urban design. Ten young New Zealand researchers, including five of our staff, joined 10 counterparts from the UK for two weeks of intensive research workshops and meetings. Participants relished opportunities to reach across the usual ‘silos’ of expertise, and produced 12 proposals for collaborative research. As part of a return visit, one of our researchers was awarded a grant from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) to visit the UK, hosted by the Universities of Exeter and Sheffield. While there, he presented a seminar to the New Zealand High Commission in London.
We participate in a number of global programmes. This year, our Informatics Science Team Leader was invited to join the 10–person Informatics Advisory Board for a new and ambitious US–based project called The Encyclopaedia of Life (EOL). Other informatics staff were asked to join the Catalogue of Life (COL) project, which is the first attempt to build a global database of all species names. This ‘dictionary’ will be important to numerous areas of conservation and biosecurity, including high profile projects such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and the EOL.
Our Integrated Catchment Management (ICM) programme contributes to UNESCO’s global HELP (Hydrology for Environment, Life and Policy) programme, and is the only designated HELP catchment in New Zealand and one of only four in Australasia. The goal of these multi–agency, multidisciplinary, multistakeholder projects is to improve the management of land, freshwater, and near–coastal environments in areas with many interacting, and sometimes conflicting, land uses. The success of the ICM programme was highlighted in TVNZ’s popular Country Calendar prime–time series earlier this year.
International collaboration often provides access to state–of–the–art technology and expertise that facilitates significant breakthroughs. For example, by working with the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit at Oxford University, we were able to radiocarbon–date rat bones and a rat–gnawed woody seeds that had been preserved in peat and swamp sites throughout New Zealand. The seeds provide strong evidence for the arrival of rats (and therefore humans) in about AD1280–1300, not before.
Three years of collaborative work with the Los Alamos National Laboratory (USA) to develop new research techniques using carbon isotopes led to our purchase this year of a stable isotope Tuneable Diode Laser Absorption Spectrometer – the only one of its type in the Southern Hemisphere. Our research approach is complementing that used by Northern Hemisphere colleagues. Working with a visiting scientist from the Macauley Institute (Scotland), we have already been able to differentiate and measure how much carbon respiration comes from the roots and how much comes from the soil in an undisturbed system – an achievement believed to be a world first.
Our biosystematics researchers have extensive international networks and regularly exchange information and specimens from our nationally significant biological collections and databases. For example, last year our Defining New Zealand’s Land Biota OBI programme had links with more than 30 overseas organisations in 12 different countries. The ‘in kind’ value of this networking is estimated to be about $455,000.
Similarly, our Ecosystems Resilience OBI programme had links last year with researchers from 16 different universities or research institutes in five countries; the collaborations were either co–funded work or in kind and do not include the additional subcontracts with New Zealand universities.
Secondments
Secondments help build networks between researchers and end–user organisations. This year, one of our scientists was seconded to the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology (MoRST) for three months to examine the links between climate change policy and science. Another scientist was seconded to Environment Waikato for one day a week to interact directly with regional council staff on policy applications and technical issues relating to modelling of land use change. One of our sustainable business scientists is seconded to New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) in Singapore.