New Zealand’s Investment in the Australian Synchrotron

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Welcome to the NZSG home page. On this site you can find out how New Zealand researchers get access to the Australian Synchrotron, one of the largest and most important items of science infrastructure in the Southern Hemisphere.

New Zealand was one of the original Foundation Investors in the Australian Synchrotron, which is located near Monash University in Melbourne. In return for the original capital funding and an annual contribution towards the operating costs, New Zealand researchers have been able to use the Synchrotron’s 10 beamlines on an equal footing with their Australian counterparts. The facility is to be expanded with an additional 8 beamlines being added over the next 6 years. In a new funding and access deal which took effect from July 2017, New Zealand will contribute a further AUD26.4 million over the next 9 years towards the new beamlines and operating costs, ensuring long-term access for New Zealand researchers to all the beamlines.

The New Zealand investment is coordinated through New Zealand Synchrotron Group Limited (NZSG); a company by Auckland, Massey, Waikato, Victoria, Lincoln, Canterbury, Otago and AUT universities, Plant & Food Research Limited, AgResearch Limited, GNS Science and Callaghan Innovation. The cost of the new funding and access arrangements is being shared by 10 of the shareholders and the Government (Lincoln University and Plant & Food Research are not part of the new arrangement). The Government is not a shareholder in the NZSG, but actively supports the access arrangement as a component of the Science, Research and Innovation Cooperation Agreement between Australia and New Zealand.  Read more . . .