Todd Foundation Grants

Posted by Clare on behalf of Robin Day, Otago Polytechnic.

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Greetings to you all.

I attended a very useful Todd Foundation Grants meeting last week. Sadly there were no ITP grants that had been put forward for that meeting. However I did gain significant insight into what we should do in this regard. The grants awarded to the University candidates were excellent and the process used was for the applications to be managed by the NZVC committee. They have a full time scholarships / grants person – Oh such luxury- The candidates were screened from 30 approx down to 10 who were then interviewed for about 25 minutes each by the panel which included myself, Dr Charles Tustin(Otago Univ) Chair, David Maloney on behalf of the Todd Foundation and Mr Todd attended toward the end to assist us in our decision making. We awarded 50k.

I gave the group an update on the situation in regards to the ITP sector and gave assurances that we would actively pursue the grants round now available to us. There is 25K available to us and I will post details on the Wiki including application forms etc. Otago Polytechnic has agreed to oversee the admin of the project. This was delegated from ITPNZ when they stopped having fora. OP has now agreed with ITPNZ to continue to manage this aspect at least in the short term. It is essential that we identify this opportunity for our students and make a good effort to take advantage of this funding.

Having sat on the committee I have to say they are very generous in their intent to give this money out.  We need to do a better job and take up the opportunity. I will get the details up on the Wiki as soon as I find a space, but start identifying good projects with students now. The grant round kick off soon and be concluded in Feb so the students will have access to the funds for the 2010 year. I will need assistance and volunteers for s short life group to shortlist applications – Let me know of your interest.

Welcome to the ITP Research Forum

Today the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand kindly hosted a group of research managers and leaders from the ITP sector in New Zealand for the inaugural meeting of the ITP Research Forum.  The ideas flowed freely, we made a number of decisions for encouraging,  supporting, sharing and disseminating ITP research related information.

Much more news will follow soon but two important initiatives were the creation of this blog and the creation of what will become a series of resources on wikieducator.