Two Law doctoral scholarships

Waikato is working with the University of Bremen on a major research project, Intercoast, bringing a range of disciplines to bear on coastal and marine studies. Thirteen PhD scholarships are now being advertised by Bremen: www.intercoast.uni-bremen.de/jobs. Two of the scholarships are in law: legal regulation and control of coastal zone management conflicts, and international cooperation on the management of shared and migratory fish stocks - a comparative law approach.

New Zealanders with LLM degrees are eligible to apply. The scholarships are for fulltime study, based for two years in Bremen and one year in New Zealand. A student would need to develop some ability to use the German language, although help would be available. Supervision is under a unique joint arrangement between the two universities. The Intercoast programme will bring students and other researchers together to provide high levels of training and support.

The German government's research foundation is providing more than $5 million for the Intercoast project. It starts in November this year and for the next nine years as many as 39 PhD students, along with postdoctoral fellows, all recruited internationally, will work on a variety of coastal projects significant to the North Sea and Bay of Plenty coasts.

These projects have been developed with input from Environment Bay of Plenty and the Port of Tauranga, and include impacts of harbour development on ecosystems, protection and utilisation of harbour and coastline, management of shared and migratory fish stocks, sediment studies and habitat dynamics, and opportunities for open ocean aquaculture.

"This is a high-level agreement," says Waikato's Professor Terry Healy who's been a key driver of Intercoast. "It's something quite special. It's the first project to come out of the New Zealand-Germany Science and Technological Agreement and covers two of the identified six priority areas for collaborative research in the agreement, namely environmental change and marine. Bremen has one of the world's top five oceanographic institutes and so we're teaming up with some of the best in the business, coupled with the support of major organisations in the Bay of Plenty, to carry out this important work."

If you are interested, or know of anyone who might be, in studying for their PhD in law, we will be glad to hear. The deadline for applications is 26 August 2009. Any questions should go to Barry Barton (IC11) barton@waikato.ac.nz or Al Gillespie (IC12) azg@waikato.ac.nz Applications now closed.