The University of Waikato Summer Research Programme
What’s involved?
Summer scholars will have the opportunity to work full-time on a research project for a ten-week period during the C Trimester (November-February) under the supervision of well-established researchers at the University of Waikato.
Who is eligible?
The scholarships are open to students currently enrolled at any New Zealand University (or other tertiary provider) in an undergraduate or Honours degree, or taught postgraduate papers. Students are not eligible if they are currently enrolled in a PhD or have commenced a Masters Research thesis.
Download the Summer Research Scholarship Regulation PDF for all eligibility criteria.
What is it worth?
Numerous scholarships are offered in various disciplines over the summer period with a cash stipend of $8,000.
Scholars are also enrolled in a credit-bearing paper over C Trimester, which in most cases can form part of their degree programme. The paper code will be confirmed prior to the scholar commencing the programme and is at the discretion of the Division/Faculty/School.
How do I apply?
To apply for the Summer Research Scholarship Programme, follow the steps outlined in our How to Apply guide. If you are a current student, you can skip to step 3.
Projects
Projects for 2023/2024 available are displayed below.
School of Arts
Te Piringa - Faculty of Law
No projects available for 2023/2024
School of Psychology
3 - How prostate cancer information is disseminated to patients: a national survey
4 - Judicial Rehabilitation/Deterrence orientations in sentencing remarks
5 - Food, eating, and disability: What is happening at the intersection of food access, food insecurity, and disability in Aotearoa New Zealand?
6 - Exploring the interactions between memory and future thinking
School of Social Sciences
Te Ngira: Institute for Population Research
Institute of Security & Crime Science
13 - Online safety to enhance digital citizenship? An inquiry into schools' service providers in Aotearoa New Zealand
14 - Young Citizens: Exploring Opportunities for Citizenship Education in the Refreshed Te Ao Tangata Social Sciences Curriculum
15 - Exploring Indigenous Picturebook Publishing Practices
16 - The impact of an iwi-based conservation camp on pre-service teachers' future practice
17 - Social Media and Research Ethics
18 - Parents on university websites: Visibility, information and inclusion in higher education
19 - Leading in and from the 'middle': Marvel, muddle, and mystery
20 - Identifying and expanding teachers' learning ecologies for teaching science
21 - Understanding the impact of English curriculum reform on teachers and teaching in Australia and New Zealand.
22 - Advancing the Teaching of Computational Thinking in Digital Technologies with Low SES Learners
School of Health
51 - Investigating the desirable attributes for medical school graduates
52 - Developing engineering schemes for nanobodies with noncanonical amino acids
53 - Use of community treatment orders in New Zealand - Regional variation and international comparisons.
54 - Factors contributing to sub-optimal medication prescribing
55 - The Māori Women's Welfare League - Awareness, Need, and Succession
56 - Children's Rights in Sport Coaching
74 - Interventions to support diabetes management in primary healthcare
75 - Exploring the impact of mental fatigue on brain plasticity during motor learning
School of Engineering
34 - Lab on Lego: Microfluidics within the Lego ecosystem for application in capacitive deionisation
35 - Rainwater capture at Tauranga City Council sites
36 - Design a Bridge for School Outreach
37 - Exploring wood mineralisation as an alternative to CCA-treated timber
38 - Biodegradable Foam from Recycled Paper: An Alternative to Polystyrene Foam
39 - Green roof implementation in Aotearoa
40 - GEL CHEMISTRY, REACTION KINETICS AND MICROSTRUCTURE OF CARBON CAPTURING CEMENT-FREE GEOPOLYMER CONCRETE
41 - Chassis structural assessment using vibrations and infrared cameras
42 - Fluid and heat transfer dynamics of biometitic surfaces for heat exchangers
43 - Enhancing volumetric efficiency of heat exchangers
44 - Hyperspectral Imaging with Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) for Advanced Data Processing
45 - Improve cold-formed steel housing construction through Construction 4.0
46 - Human assist technology for blueberry harvesting
47 - Human-Assisted Robotics in Strawberry Harvesting
48 - Cold-formed steel portal frames in fire
49 - Measuring Battery Health: Which Method is Best?
50 - Non-destructive testing of porous materials
80 - Modification of Harakeke fibres for cosmetic applications
School of Computing & Mathematical Sciences
25 - Comparison of results for a new operator network against pre-existing networks
26 - Cyber-Attacks Filtering Map
27 - Using wearable IoT based physiological data to identify cognitive workload and cognitive fatigue
28 - Effective Bus Routes for Tauranga using the Ant Colony Optimisation Algorithm
29 - The Proliferation of Character Encoding Errors in Academic Publications and Its Impact on Discoverability of Research Articles
30 - New Zealand and Australia on the telescope: lessons and opportunities via cybersecurity Internet measurements
31 - Self adaptive rules for smart environments
32 - Developing Mobile Games for Computational Thinking Learning in Real World Contexts
33 - Improving community collaboration, respecting kaitiakitanga and individual/collective mana.
School of Science
57 - Detecting airborne microplastics in the Waikato region
58 - Exploring Arylsulfatase Structure-Activity Relationships
59 - Managing stressors in stream ecosystems using next-generation biomonitoring tools
60 - Quantifying the rarity of past experiences when planning for future record-shattering rainfall extremes
61 - Reef fish assemblages within Taumona Marine Reserve and the greater Te Moana o Atawhenua
62 - Monitoring the recruitment of an invasive marine tube worm
63 - Spectral characterisation of lichens and bryophytes in New Zealand beech forests
64 - Does size matter? Exploring the role of binding surface in enzymatic ligation of Xeno Nucleic Acids
65 - Behavioural responses of the long-tailed bat (Chalinolobus tuberculatus) to localised variations in climatic conditions
66 - Measuring and communicating the value of Tauranga's trees
67 - Soil carbon cycling along a geothermal gradient
68 - Does environmental tolerance differ between urban and rural blowfly populations?
69 - Responses of belowground invertebrate food webs and ecosystem functioning to multiple disturbances in NZ alpine grasslands
70 - Do male nurseryweb spiders avoid cannabilism by mating with immature females?
71 - Understanding the similarities and differences of heat stress experiences in four diverse locations around the world
78 - Application of machine learning techniques to classify indicators of bivalve behaviour
72 - Long-term Financial Sustainability of Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari
73 - Aotearoa New Zealand Rural Small Firms: The case of the 'triple crisis' of the pandemic, cost of living and the tight labour market in rural areas
76 - Global Farming Systems Research Project (Gallagher)
77 - What data is useful to Value Streams to drive the business forward? (Gallagher)
No projects available for 2023/2024
7 - Too Close to Call: Politicians, Speech-Acts, and Breast Cancer in Women of Aotearoa New Zealand
8 - Understanding home support needs of people aged 65+ years in the Western Bay of Plenty
9 - The influence of Open Day attendance on decisions about where and what to study
10 - How “green” are green rooves Review of best practices and implications for Aotearoa New Zealand
11 - Consumption of Queer Culture: Queer Blindness and Resistance