Award-winning scholarship scheme boosts cotton research

December 10, 2007

Fifteen students from the University of New England have benefited from an award-winning "summer scholarship" program that has enabled them to contribute to scientific research supporting the Australian cotton industry.

Altogether, 45 university students around Australia have received Summer Scholarships from the Cotton Catchment Communities Cooperative Research Centre (Cotton CRC) since the scholarship program was introduced seven years ago. The program has just won a national award from the Business/Higher Education Round Table (BHERT).

Anna Balzer, who comes from Pittsworth in Queensland, is the latest UNE recipient of a Cotton CRC Summer Scholarship. The scholarship will support her while she develops her research skills in a UNE laboratory this summer. Anna, who has just completed the second year of her Bachelor of Science degree program, will be investigating biological methods of suppressing the fungal infection that causes "black root rot" in cotton.

Last summer Rebecca Forbes, another Bachelor of Science student at UNE, was supported by a Summer Scholarship to conduct research on genetic mechanisms for the control of black root rot. Rebecca, who comes from Newcastle, has been able to take that work further in her Honours project this year, making a valuable contribution to research in the field. (Some earlier UNE recipients of the scholarships, too, have taken their summer projects on to successful outcomes in the wider world of research. For example, a summer project conducted by UNE student Jessica Richards in 2003 led to a publication in a scientific journal and a job with the NSW Department of Primary Industries.)

The Summer Scholarships give undergraduate students eight weeks of paid research work during their summer holidays, combining experience in a regional location and collaboration with a professional scientist. Both Anna and Rebecca are working with UNE microbiologist Dr Lily Pereg-Gerk. [Anna Balzer (at left) and Rebecca Forbes are pictured here in their UNE laboratory.]

UNE – along with several other universities, cotton industry organisations, the CSIRO, and State government primary industry departments – is a partner in the Cotton CRC. At last month's BHERT awards ceremony in Sydney, Lisa Paul, Secretary of the Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training, presented the award for "best collaboration with a regional focus" to Cotton CRC Chief Scientist Professor Peter Gregg.

"This award recognises the truly collaborative nature of the Cotton CRC and the contributions made by all participants to its Summer Scholarship Program," Professor Gregg said. He noted that Summer Scholarship projects had initiated a considerable amount of new scientific research within the Cotton CRC.

UNE is also a participant in the CRC for Australian Weed Management (Weeds CRC). This year's BHERT award for "best collaboration involving a CRC" went to a program involving the Weeds CRC. The program is based on a new weed management manual developed by the Weeds CRC in response to the increasing resistance of weeds to commonly used herbicides. The manual draws on 20 years of weed management research – some of it conducted by UNE scientists.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at December 10, 2007 02:59 PM