The MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology (often simply called the MacDiarmid Institute) is a
New Zealand
New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...
Centre of Research Excellence
The Centres of Research Excellence (CoREs) are interorganisational research networks in New Zealand funded through the Centres of Research Excellence scheme, which is administered by the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC).
History
The scheme w ...
(CoRE) specialising in
materials science
Materials science is an interdisciplinary field of researching and discovering materials. Materials engineering is an engineering field of finding uses for materials in other fields and industries.
The intellectual origins of materials sci ...
and
nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). At this scale, commonly known as the nanoscale, surface area and quantum mechanical effects become important in describing propertie ...
. It is hosted by
Victoria University of Wellington
Victoria University of Wellington (), also known by its shorter names "VUW" or "Vic", is a public university, public research university in Wellington, New Zealand. It was established in 1897 by Act of New Zealand Parliament, Parliament, and w ...
, and is a collaboration between five universities and two
Crown Research Institute
In New Zealand, Crown Research Institutes (CRIs) are corporatised Crown entities charged with conducting scientific research. In January 2025, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced plans to merge the existing crown research institutes into t ...
s.
Background
The Institute is named after
Alan MacDiarmid
Alan Graham MacDiarmid, ONZ FRS (14 April 1927 – 7 February 2007) was a New Zealand-born American chemist, and one of three recipients of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2000.
Early life and education
MacDiarmid was born in Masterton, New ...
, a New Zealander who won the
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry () is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outst ...
in 2000. It is funded by the New Zealand government through the Tertiary Education Commission.
The Institute divides its work into four research areas:
*Towards Zero Waste – Reconfigurable Systems
*Towards Zero Carbon – Catalytic Architectures
*Towards Low Energy Tech – Hardware for Future Computing
*Sustainable resource use – Mātauranga Māori Research Programme
Awards
From 2004 to 2007, the MacDiarmid Institute sponsored the annual Young Scientist of the Year awards for up-and-coming scientists and researchers in New Zealand, organised by the
Foundation for Research, Science and Technology
The Foundation for Research, Science and Technology () was a Crown entity of New Zealand, established by the Foundation for Research, Science, and Technology Act 1990.
It had the stated mission of "investing for results from research, science a ...
.
These awards replaced the FiRST Scholarship Awards, and have subsequently been replaced by the
Prime Minister's MacDiarmid Emerging Scientist Prize.
Directors
See also
*
Cather Simpson
Miriam Cather Simpson is a New Zealand-American physics/chemistry academic and entrepreneur. She is currently a professor at the University of Auckland, a joint appointment between the physics and chemistry departments. She is the founder of th ...
*
Alison Downard
*
Catherine Bishop
References
External links
MacDiarmid Institute websiteMacDiarmid Institute's BioNanotechnology network
Research institutes in New Zealand
Victoria University of Wellington
Nanotechnology institutions
2002 establishments in New Zealand
New Zealand science and technology awards
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