Vice-Chancellor's Update | Wednesday 15 November 2023 - Correction
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Wed Nov 15 2023 13:00:00 GMT+1300 (New Zealand Daylight Time)
Kia ora koutou
Further to my email earlier today, and with apologies to Professor Stephen May, please note the correction that Professor May is in the Faculty of Education and Social Work (not the Faculty of Arts).
Ngā mihi nui Dawn
Kia ora koutou
It has been another week of outstanding achievement by many of our academic staff members. Congratulations to all our researchers who have received some of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most prestigious research awards, underlining the University’s status as the country’s leading research institution.
Human rights and sustainability researcher Dr Maria Armoudian (Faculty of Arts) has won the Royal Society Te Apārangi Early Career Research Excellence Award for Social Scienceshttps://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/news/2023/11/08/human-rights-champion-wins-top-royal-society-award.html. The award acknowledges Dr Armoudian's research, leadership and mentoring work to advance the interconnected goals of sustainability, human rights and good governance.
Professor Stephen May, FRSNZ (Faculty of Education and Social Work) has been awarded the Royal Society Te Apārangi Mason Durie Medalhttps://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/news/2023/11/08/indigenous-language-expert-wins-mason-durie-medal.html, recognising his outstanding contributions to the social sciences for his language rights and revitalisation work, spanning applied and sociolinguistics, sociology, political theory, law and education.
His work has informed and underpinned developments in te reo Māori and Pacific language policy, and bilingual and immersion education in Aotearoa over the last 30 years.
Professor Nicola Gaston’s (Faculty of Science) achievements as a leader and driver of change have been acknowledged with one of New Zealand’s highest research honours: the Royal Society Te Apārangi Thomson Medalhttps://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/tenacious-boldness-top-honour-for-change-making-nz-scientist/7TWX3EWDY5EPLIP6WRUIUN35DE/?fbclid=IwAR07Qm2wQ7ZemfxAlfgiWJey6WfTd2xLqxgr4EEs-KS65phDAC1q3Kor1w0. The Medal recognises the way she has focussed attention on equity gaps in the science sector, as well as her co-directorship of the Victoria University-hosted MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology.
On behalf of the New Zealand Association of Scientists, Dr Natalie Netzler (Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences) has been awarded the Cranwell Medalhttps://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/news/2023/11/14/researcher-receives-medal-pandemic-service.html for excellence in communicating research and information to Māori communities during Covid-19. She shares the medal with collaborator and doctoral candidate Chris Puli'uvea.
Marsden Awards
The University’s research excellence was recognised earlier this month in another successful Marsden funding roundhttps://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/news/2023/11/02/university-marsden-research.html. Thirty-one projects led by our academics received $21.5 million in funding across the faculties of Science, Medical and Health Sciences, Education and Social Work, and Engineering, as well as ABI.
World University Rankings
Academic reputation and employer reputation are important components in how the University is perceived. Two of the leading world rankings are running reputation surveys to assess this.
I encourage all staff to participate in the QS World University Rankings 2025 Reputation Surveys by nominating your academic and employer contacts who can vouch for the University of Auckland’s academic excellence and the success of our graduates. You can learn more about the QS World University Rankings 2025 Reputation Surveyshttps://research-hub.auckland.ac.nz/article/qs-world-university-rankings-reputation-surveys and submit your nominations by visiting the ResearchHub. The nomination period closes on Thursday 30 November.
In addition, the Times Higher Education (THE) Global Academic Reputation Survey is underway, allowing participants to vote for the University of Auckland as well as other world-leading universities. Invitations to take part in this survey are sent directly to academic staff members from THE in November.
Ngā mihi nui Dawn
Professor Dawn Freshwater Vice-Chancellor