Minister Shane Reti, whose portfolios include Science Innovation and Technology, and Universities, chose the Auckland Bioengineering Institute’s (ABI) Cloud 9 medtech spin-out hub to launch the New Zealand Government’s $20 million applied doctorate scheme.
The scheme will fund up to 30 PhD students a year over five years and will be hosted collaboratively by Auckland, Victoria, Otago and Massey universities. Researchers will spend time working with industry and business, and will gain hands-on experience with essential commercialisation skills like project management and finance.
The applied doctorate scheme, with its focus on collaboration between universities and industry, and on preparing graduate students more broadly for moving into industry, is a reinforcement of principles at the core of the Auckland Bioengineering Institute’s way of working.
“We have already run a very successful doctoral training programme in medical technologies and we see great synergies with the new applied PhD scheme. We are excited to see this approach spread more broadly to other disciplines and in partnership with other universities. And it can only be beneficial to have more connections with the new Public Research Organisations and with industry”, said ABI director Merryn Tawhai.
