Emerging researchers gathered in Wellington this week (1 – 3 Nov) forRunningHot! 2010, an event designed to stimulate creativity and provoke debate over the future of science and research in New Zealand.
Under the theme “Wonder & Widgets: Realising the value of research for NZ“, the conference aimed to challenge thinking about how research creates value and explore innovative perspectives on how to enhance economic, environmental, intellectual and societal benefits from research.
The Science Media Centre led a session during the early-career researcher symposium that opened the conference, and was on hand for many of the following days’ events. (See below for audio we recorded from a selection of the sessions.)
Excellent wrap-ups of each day’s events and key points from the speakers are available courtesy of conference participant Anne Galloway’s Design Culture Lab blog:
Running Hot 2010: Early Career Researcher Symposium (Pt. 1)
Running Hot 2010: Early Career Researcher Symposium (Pt. 2)
Running Hot 2010: Imagining Value
Running Hot 2010: Creating Value
Running Hot 2010: Transforming Value
Running Hot 2010: Enhancing Value
On Twitter, you can look back over stand-out statements and running commentary on the event under the hashtag #rh2010
International keynote speakers included:
- Nigel Thrift, Vice-Chancellor, University of Warwick – presenting pros and cons of evaluating research value based on economic productivity
- Catherine Mohr, Director of Medical Research at Intuitive Surgical, a high tech surgical robotics company – foreshadowing the emergence of surgical “super powers”
- Stuart Cunningham, Distinguished Professor of Media and Communications at Queensland University of Technology and Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation – discussing ‘wicked’ problems, like climate change, terrorism and obesity
Other speakers included:
- Murray Bain, CE of Ministry of Science and Innovation – opening address
- Jeff Tallon, IRL – “Research <- -> Commercialisation: which way does the arrow point?”
- Brennan Wood, Massey – “Telling the Truth” – science, communication and value
- Ray Avery, inventor, New Zealander of the Year – “Product realisation: the new frontier”
- Juliet Gerrard, UC – “Capturing the energy and creativity of young researchers”
- Peter Shepherd, U AK – “Starting spinout companies is the easy bit; making money is hard”
- David Johnston, Massey/GNS – “Exporting knowledge: beyond the container”
- Shaun Hendy, IRL/VUW – “Inventing New Zealand’s Future”
- Vic Arcus, AgResearch/Waikato – “The data deluge and the reinvention of the polymath”
- Rhonda Shaw, VUW – “Thanking and reciprocating under the NZ organ donation system”
- Mark Anderson, IBM – “Can science cross over from product to service?”
…and many more. For the full programme see here.
LISTEN BACK
Speaker: Professor Nigel Thrift, Vice-Chancellor, University of Warwick. Talk: ‘What is Research Value?’
We will add audio from more sessions over coming days…