Auckland and Otago Universities are the big winners in a new round of funding for New Zealand's top research institutes.
The Tertiary Education Commission has announced there will be four new Centres of Research Excellence or CoREs.
They are the Medical Technologies CoRE and the Centre for Complex Systems and Networks, both at Auckland University; the Dodd-Walls Centre for Photonic and Quantum Technologies at Otago University and Brain Research New Zealand, which will be jointly hosted by both Auckland and Otago universities.
In 2007 Otago missed out completely on hosting a Centre of Research Excellence, despite filing proposals for ten and being ranked as the top university for research quality.
In mid-March there was controversy when it was announced CoREs funding would be stripped from the Riddet Institute at Massey University, Gravida at Auckland University, the Bio-Protection Centre at Lincoln University and Nga Pae o Te Maramatanga at Waikato University.
The Maurice Wilkins Centre at Auckland University and the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, hosted by Victoria University, have retained their CoRE status.
