Posted on 18 July 2017
Tipping Points hosts interdisciplinary workshop
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- Cumulative effects Land-sea interaction Marine values Dynamic Seas National
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15 PhD students and postdocs from across New Zealand came together to discuss estuarine science and share ideas, as they developed sampling plans for the national Tipping Points experiment.
At the end of June, the Tipping Points project held a training workshop for its early career researchers.
The PhD students and postdoctoral research fellows represented 6 organisations (NIWA, Cawthron Institute, and the universities of Auckland, Canterbury, Otago and Waikato). They included social scientists, computer modellers, ecologists, and biogeochemists.
The workshop focused on supporting countrywide partnerships and sharing ideas to build capacity in interdisciplinary research. Collaboration is a critical element of all the National Science Challenges, which bring together New Zealand’s ‘best teams’ to tackle major issues – and it benefits individual researchers.
“Sharing experiences, helping each other, and exploring other disciplines’ view of an issue gives researchers – whatever stage of their career – valuable insights for their work. Providing this opportunity for those at their start of their careers is particularly useful as it helps them establish initial links and networks to build on,” says Prof Simon Thrush, the project leader and Director of the Institute of Marine Science at the University of Auckland.
About the Tipping Points project
In a world of escalating environmental change it is critical we understand how natural ecosystems respond.
Coasts and estuaries are at the forefront of climate change because they are the boundary between land and sea. This project is investigating how our coasts respond to change caused by multiple human activities, which will affect the many ways we value and use these marine ecosystems. It is New Zealand’s first national marine experiment.
