Partnering to deepen and further our engagement - Annual Report 2018

8 April, 2019

Using science knowledge to develop key technologies that address national and global issues is at the heart of what we do.

We have this year partnered with Whakarewarewa Village in Rotorua to foster whanaungatanga with Māori communities and to contribute towards ways Māori knowledge can be woven together with western science.

We have also partnered with two New Zealand museums. Our relationship with Te Papa Tongarewa will see materials science and future sustainable technologies based on materials science part of Te Papa’s new ‘Nature’ exhibition. Our traveling exhibition of science – from the lab to the marketplace – will open at MOTAT and then travel around regional museums.

These two museum partnerships will showcase MacDiarmid Institute science and innovation stories to visitors of all ages all around New Zealand.

Our researchers, along with some of our alumni, again travelled the country for our annual Regional Lecture Series. This year they highlighted the many pathways to industry for science graduates, andused personal stories to inspire secondary students to study science and be part of innovative technologies research.

We have continued our public talks, science camps, hands-on experiment sessions for kids, and professional development programmes and resources for teachers. Public engagement is a collective endeavour and the MacDiarmid Institute takes our science to the community and interacts with people wherever they are, so activities have been held in a wide range of venues all over New Zealand, including schools, science festivals, cinemas, regional cities, and universities.

Cluster hui

Other meetings included a sensors meeting in Masterton in January, a joint TED theme/FLEET meeting in Wellington in February, a redox active materials and device fabrication meeting in Christchurch in March, a superconductivity workshop in Wellington in April, a soft materials workshop in Palmerston North in August, and the 15th annual cluster meeting at the Forest & Bird Ruapehu Lodge, Whakapapa in September.

2018 jump-started our nascent partnership between FLEET and MacDiarmid Institute, with joint meetings in Wellington and New South Wales, producing a buzz of new collaboration ideas.

Professor Michael S. Fuhrer Director ARC Centre of Excellence in Future Low-Energy Electronics Technologies (FLEET)