Three UC projects secure EU funding

The University of Canterbury is involved in three of six New Zealand projects approved for a new European Commission science programme.

The International Research Staff Exchange Scheme (IRSES) supports long-term research partnerships between the European Union and countries such as New Zealand that have a science and technology co-operation agreement with the EU.

The scheme will allow successful New Zealand researchers to work at European research organisations for extended periods. The New Zealand organisations will host European scientists on reciprocal visits.

Announcing which government-supported proposals had been approved, the Minister of Research, Science and Technology Wayne Mapp said they represented 10 per cent of all approved proposals, and highlighted New Zealand’s international research standing.

“New Zealand’s success in the scheme demonstrates the international quality of our research. The Government has supported the programme because we recognise the importance of international collaboration in science,” he said.

Professor Douglas Bridges (Mathematics and Statistics) is an expert in constructive mathematics, which focuses on finding algorithms for constructing mathematical objects.

"What we are doing is unearthing the computational content of pure mathematics and showing how to construct or compute important abstract objects. As a bonus, by doing so we show the program for their construction meets its specifications.”

Professor Bridges described the work as "unsexy" and said he was "pretty pleased" that it had been recognised by the IRSES.

"The work that some of us have been doing for quite a long time is getting recognition. I would never have believed starting out in my career
that I would ever have been involved in securing EU funding for a project of this sort," he said.

HIT Lab NZ Director Professor Mark Billinghurst, together with staff from HIT Lab NZ and the University of Otago, will visit the Fraunhofer Institute in St. Augustin, Germany, the Technical University of Graz, Austria, and the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology, Finland.

The focus of the project will be the development of augmented reality for mobile phones used in urban areas.

“An example would be for navigation where if you were new to a town your mobile phone would show a video view of your location with virtual tags on the buildings so you could tell where you were,” said Professor Billinghurst.

He is hopeful that HIT Lab NZ’s involvement in the new scheme will lead to more joint research projects with institutions in Europe.
Professor Andy Buchanan and Associate Professor Stefano Pampanin (Civil and Natural Resources Engineering) will work with colleagues in Europe on the development of large-span timber buildings.

They will visit the University of Stuttgart in Germany, the Technical University of Milan and the University of Sassari in Italy.

Professor Buchanan said there was international interest in greater utilisation of renewable materials in the construction of large buildings.
"We're not talking about houses here. These are commercial and industrial buildings with large spans and wide open spaces."

He said the work with the new European partners would complement a large-scale UC project funded by the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology.