Science Minister Shane Reti chose the Auckland Bioengineering Institute as the venue to announce a groundbreaking PhD funding scheme.
Minister Shane Reti left the Auckland Bioengineering Institute buzzing after meeting researchers working on some of the university’s most innovative medical technologies.
The Minister, whose portfolios include Science Innovation and Technology, and Universities, chose the Auckland Bioengineering Institute’s Cloud 9 medtech spin-out hub to launch the Government’s $20 million applied doctorate scheme.
The scheme will fund up to 30 PhD students a year over five years and will be hosted collaboratively by Auckland, Victoria, Otago and Massey universities. Researchers will spend time working with industry and business, and will gain hands-on experience with essential commercialisation skills like project management and finance.
Reti said the opportunity to visit ABI early-stage medtech companies and to talk to the scientists leading them was valuable for him as a minister.
“You get a sense of the passion of the people working here when you are on site that you don’t get out of a booklet or an annual report,” he said.
“For example, the Alimetry people – that’s amazing. Who knew the gut would generate electrical signals similar to an ECG, and that by wearing a device on the outside you can interpret those signals and have a first stage understanding of some of the clinical problems people have with gut motility?”
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