Call for Participants to take part in the ‘Sandpit’: Delivering a Sustainable Future for Freshwater Resources

The Europe-New Zealand FP7 bilateral project FRENZ[1], in conjunction with the New Zealand Foundation for Research Science and Technology (the Foundation), invites expressions of interest to participate in an interactive ‘Sandpit’ workshop to be held in New Zealand from 13 to 18 March 2011.

A 'Sandpit' is an intensive, interactive and innovative workshop, bringing together a diverse group of participants across disciplines, to find solutions to big research issues or 'wicked problems'. This FRENZ Sandpit aims to bring together 16-22 participants from Europe and New Zealand to identify best practice models to characterise and map groundwater resources, and identify methods for freshwater allocation that take account of the environmental, socio-economic and cultural aspects of water use.

We seek to engage researchers from a broad range of disciplines, to work outside their normal comfort zone, and approach the topic in a deliberately creative way to identify project ideas that have the potential to answer these multi-faceted research questions.

Novel, and potentially transformative, collaborative research projects identified during the Sandpit process may be funded by the Foundation.

For more information, the call text, and to download the Expressions of Interest form, please see: http://www.frenz.org.nz/Activities/Sandpits.aspx.

Closing Date for applications: 6 January 2011 (5pm in applicant’s country).

[1] The FRENZ (Facilitating Research cooperation between Europe and New Zealand) project is funded under the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme [FP7/2007-2013] under grant agreement n° 22665; and from the New Zealand Ministry of Research, Science and Technology.