- Finding, understanding, and mitigating vulnerabilities in domestic and global software supply chains. Associate Professor Jens Dietrich from the School of Engineering and Computer Science and Professor Stephen MacDonell from the Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence have been awarded $7,775,000 in a 4-year contract.
- Optimising yeasts for improved flavour in no-alcohol beer and wine. Associate Professor Simon Hinkley from the Ferrier Research Institute, and Dr Peter Bircham from the School of Biological Sciences and Garage Project have been awarded $7,803,067 in a 5-year contract.
“I’m delighted to see these valuable industry-partnered projects have received much-needed funding,” says Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research, Professor Margaret Hyland.
“I’m also very happy to see our researchers working collaboratively with those from other Public Research Organisations and universities on a wide range of innovative research.”
Researchers from Te Herenga Waka are also collaborating with other universities on six other projects:
- Dr Finn Illsley-Kemp will lead our contribution to Deep Heat, which aims to tap a new source of geothermal energy called supercritical fields, led by ESNZ/GNS.
- Professor Bastiaan Kleijn will lead our contribution to Next-generation early warning systems for tsunamis, led by ESNZ/GNS.
- Professor Chris Bumby will lead our contribution to Next-generation ore: towards sustainable mining for regional prosperity and societal resilience, led by Auckland University.
- Dr Lawrence Harris will lead our contribution to work on Broad-spectrum antivirals, led by University of Otago.
- Dr Malcolm Ingham will lead our contribution to work on Solar tsunamis: next-generation space weather prediction, led by University of Otago.
- Randy Pollock will lead our contribution to Building critical capability for space-based climate monitoring with next-generation photonics, led by University of Otago.
These sub-contracts vary in value, but have a total value of around $9.7 million.
Software supply chains
The project focused on global software supply chains aims to use artificial intelligence and software engineering methods to improve the security of software systems, and protect them from attacks due to inherent vulnerabilities.
“Recent global and domestic cybersecurity incidents demonstrate how software supply chain security weaknesses can be exploited and the significant economic damage that can result. There are new international political strategies in play to prevent such things.
“We will be running a research programme with two complementary workstreams to develop and evaluate resilient software supply chain solutions for real-world environments,” say the researchers.
Optimising yeast strains for no-alcohol beer and wine
This project, recently presented on Our Changing World, is a collaboration between the Ferrier Institute and Garage Project. The goal of the project is to meet the growing demands for non-alcoholic beverage options that retain the taste of our favourite social drinks.
“Our goal is to generate indigenous yeasts and the technologies to produce non-alcoholic beer and wine with desirable characteristics, and without the drawbacks of existing methodologies,” explain the researchers.
“We want to discover and create indigenous wild yeast under a mātauranga Māori framework, providing beverage industries with a high-value commercial resource to meet the world’s changing demand for beer and wine.”
The research team combines expertise from the University of Auckland and Waikato University, as well as partnering with industry through the Bragato Research Institute, Garage Project, leading NZ wineries, and yeast producers.
Recipients of this round of Endeavour Funding join six current research projects still underway from Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington.