WMIER researcher wins Marsden Fund grant

A research project led by Professor Margaret Carr is one of three research projects led by University of Waikato researchers to receive support from the Marsden Fund, New Zealand's funding for ideas-driven research.

Professor Carr’s project is designed to examine young children’s creative inclinations to puzzle about the unknown and develop innovative working theories. It will challenge international monocultural definitions of innovation potential and creative capacity by examining children’s responses to well-designed museum visits from kohanga reo and kura kaupapa Māori.

The Marsden Fund supported projects

The Marsden Fund has announced it will distribute $59 million to fund 110 new research projects nationwide, each for a three-year period.

The Marsden Fund supported projects at Waikato University are:

• ‘The sub-national mechanisms of the ending of population growth. Towards a theory of depopulation’, Professor Natalie Jackson, National Institute of Demographic and Economic Analysis, total funding: $748,000.
• ‘Children visiting a museum: information gathering or creative capacity building?’, Professor Margaret Carr, Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research, total funding: $778,000.
• ‘The Evolution of Biosynthetic Pathways and Metabolism’, Professor Vic Arcus, Department of Biological Sciences, with co-Principal Investigator Dr Wayne Patrick (University of Otago), total funding: $739,130.
  

The Marsden Fund

The Marsden Fund is administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand on behalf of the Marsden Fund Council, and funded by the New Zealand Government. It supports projects in the sciences, technology, engineering and maths, social sciences and the humanities.