Songlines Once More with Feeling Coming Into the Fold

Once more with feeling Research, Scholarship Designing for emotion and Creativity Coming into the fold October The domesticated deer 2006 Songlines ISSN 1177-2247 Listening to bellbirds Plus: Chewing it over • Molecules through the looking glass • ChildrenMASSEY and RESEARCH fairness Why fundamental research makes sense What is the purpose of university where results are uncertain and success is unpredictable. It can be research? The research carried out expensive, with the best research often coming from multidisciplinary by universities is so various and the teams using sophisticated equipment. It may take many years. Risky, benefits so many that the question is unpredictable, long term, expensive – you can see why fundamental difficult to answer easily or succinctly. research does not endear itself to the market. Which isn’t to say that some haven’t So why persist? One reason is that the pay-offs when they come tried. One carefully-worded Canadian definition I came upon recently – and often they are serendipitous – can have such extraordinary, far- gave the purpose of university research as being, first, to increase our reaching and novel applications and implications. Fundamental research collective understanding of all facets of matter, life and experience, in biochemistry gave us the structure of DNA. Today DNA sequencing and, second, to apply this understanding in ways that lead to increased is routinely used in genetic screening for birth defects, in criminal prosperity and a better quality of life1. forensics and in a legion of other applications. Fundamental research in To put it in other words, the business of a university is first of all atomic physics gave us the laser, a device now ubiquitous in consumer curiosity-driven, fundamental research and then its application. electronics, computing and communications. The stock of knowledge Why is the order so important? Because a commitment to added to by fundamental research benefits not just private enterprise fundamental research is one of the defining characteristics of a but society generally. university, a university’s reason for being. It is a statement that bears Another reason is that by undertaking fundamental research we repeating from time to time. create better universities. The opportunity to pursue fundamental In the past fifteen years, as the world’s economies have become research is one of the incentives that persuades our best and brightest increasingly globalised and knowledge-based, governments have taken to choose university careers over other, often better-paid, options. notice. They can see that the success of nations depends on their ability Their teaching is informed by their research. Their postgraduate to cultivate and employ their intellectual assets to best effect. Viewed students will take with them into industry – or society more generally through this lens, a university becomes one input among others, a – the technical and problem-solving skills that fundamental research is utility for creating an educated and hence more productive workforce uniquely suited to providing. In short, by funding good fundamental and for addressing the environmental, social and economic issues of research we build good universities, good universities do a better job the day. of knowledge transfer, and a more knowledgeable society should be a If the wine industry needs a competitive advantage, a university happier and more prosperous one. can be funded to develop hardier grape vines. If the demographic Of course, there is an extent to which the distinction between composition of the population is changing and help is needed to fundamental and applied research is purely artificial. Applied research inform regional planning, a university study is commissioned. can have implications at a fundamental level. Fundamental research I support applied research like this, but then my advocacy is hardly may produce immediate applications. Is Professor Barry Scott’s research necessary. Applied research has a good fit with the way the world into the relationship between fungi and grasses they inhabit applied or works: it can be carried out within time spans with which businesses fundamental? Either box can be ticked. On the one hand his research and governments are comfortable, it is relatively easily costed and its may well lead to improved pastures, on the other, it is serendipitously aims are pragmatic and achievable. It will find the funding it needs. telling us fundamental truths about the role of superoxides – currently ‘Fundamental’, ‘basic’, or ‘curiosity-driven’ research – choose your demonised as harmful respiration by-product and little else – in terms – is often none of these things. If intention is the measure, regulating cell growth. then basic research is undertaken to acquire new knowledge of the What matters – or ought to matter – should be less the label ‘applied’ underlying foundations of phenomena without regard to any particular or ‘fundamental’ than the quality of research being undertaken. One application. Fundamental research frequently ventures into realms hopes that funding bodies will take note. 1 Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, Momentum: the 2005 report on university Judith Kinnear research and knowledge transfer Vice-Chancellor MASSEY RESEARCH Close to the bone Research, Scholarship Tackling osteoporosis and Creativity Channelling Bartók Reconstructing a deathbed concerto November 005 Oh islands in the sun Stories we tell ourselves about the South Pacific Playing well with others Plus: Literacy • Life’s origins • Doing business globally Editor Malcolm Wood [email protected] Welcome to the third issue of Massey Research, one of our flagship Writers Makere Edwards publications. Here, once again, you will find profiles of a number Adam Gifford of Massey’s researchers and the work they are doing. Lucy Marsden Yet any publication that focuses on individuals is, in a sense, misrepresenting the nature of Patrick Morgan much of the research that goes on within universities today – research which more than ever is Anna Meyer a collaborative, multidisciplinary enterprise taking place within and between universities, tertiary Michael Peters institutions, Crown Research Institutes, government and private enterprise. Margo White One reason for this trend away from the individual and towards the network or the team Malcolm Wood Photographers Graeme Brown is that some of the most fertile territories for research, development – and, for that matter, Doug Cole commercialisation – demand multidisciplinary approaches. Take, for example, the robotic jaw Mark Coote being developed on Massey’s Palmerston North and Auckland campuses. To develop a jaw that Phil Crawford is a simulacrum of our own jaws and can be used to measure the characteristics of food requires Dionne Ward a command of mechatronics, physiology, dentistry, and food technology. Hence, although the Design Grant Bunyan development of the jaw is being spearheaded by Massey mechatronics and food technology Additional help from Graeme Beal, Di Billing, researchers, other expertise at Otago and Auckland Universities is also integral. Kim Griggs, Amanda Another reason for collaborative research is economic: in the interests of New Zealand’s McAuliffe, Helen Vause Thanks to Peter Gilberd and the advancement it makes more sense to share expensive capital items than to duplicate them. Marsden Fund; Curator One of the most tangible acknowledgements of the worth of collaborative research has come Amanda Symon and the in the form of the creation of various centres and partnerships. A short walk away from my office Ngai Tahu Ma-ori Rock on the Palmerston North campus two of the most recent centres are taking shape. One is the Art Trust; Ange Moir Hopkirk Institute, a $16 million state-of-the-art research and teaching facility, which will bring together the expertise of scientists from Massey’s Institute of Veterinary Animal and Biomedical Sciences (IVABS) and AgResearch; the other, a $1.5 million microscopy research centre, which will Want to know more? be used by research groups throughout the Manawatu region. Both will open in early 2007. Research Services What is more, if I were to take the two-hour drive down to the Wellington campus I would Tel +64 6 356 5120 find a third new research centre, the joint Centre for Disaster Research, established this year as Fax +64 6 350 5690 a partnership between Massey and GNS Science to better prepare New Zealand against natural E-mail: [email protected] disasters. For information about the commercial But the developments I most anticipate are those connected with the two Partnerships application of research contact: Massey University Commercialisation for Excellence. One of these, the $22 million “Agricultural and Life Sciences Partnership”, is Tel +64 6 350 5135 integrating the research and education capabilities of Massey and Lincoln universities; the other, Fax +64 6 350 5708 the $5 million “Towards a Future-Focused New Zealand Equine Industry Partnership”, will E-mail: [email protected] employ education and research to help the equine industry reach its full economic potential. For media enquiries contact: Since these partnerships were announced in 2005, their planning and development has Communications and Marketing continued apace. The next year should be momentous, and I look forward to bringing you news Tel +64 6 350 5255 of them in the next issue of this publication. Fax +64 6 350 5786 E-mail: [email protected] Nigel

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