Issue 47 – Monday 07 December 2020
Contents
HeadSup
Kia ora koutou
I am sure that you are all experiencing an’end-year feeling’ and that this will have brought on varying degrees of relief and anxiety (all of the unfinished projects). It’s been an odd year and so I strongly encourage you to focus on the former, and to give yourselves and each other some generous congratulations on getting this far.
JR is absent this week and so I have just a few words to introduce this instalment of P-Cubed. Great news for Lorna and Marta – and so congratulations to you two; and also to our former student (and most recently, colleague too – teaching GEOG 104) Linda – for her award. Details on these are below.
ENV staff celebrated the end-of-year last Friday, and many thanks to Nick and Heather for hosting us again; and to Alex, Siła and the others who helped (and apologies if by naming some I’ve necessarily overlooked others). We will have a celebration for PhD students (and staff) next week – on Thursday 17 December (4-6). If you’ve not responded to Samantha’s emails the deadline for signing-up is today.
Planning for 2021 is underway and in haste, but if your email is set to ‘out of office’ then no worries. If that’s the case then enjoy a well-earned break; or if like me you’ll be around until the 23rd then enjoy the quiet!
Cheers,
David
Whakawhanaungatanga-Communities
Geoscience Society of New Zealand
GSNZ Conference 23-25th November 2020, University of Canterbury, Christchurch
With a rare face-to-face meeting in the offing, 21 University of Auckland staff and students took the opportunity to attend. The conference turned out to be a large one by Geoscience standards with a final total of 410 including some via zoom. Several School of Environment staff and students attended the pre-conference fieldtrip ‘Kaikoura earthquake surface ruptures, landslides and building damage’ with the Waiau Wall (Figure 1) and Leader landslides (Figure 2) particularly spectacular.
For details, please click P-cubed_GSNZ_Report
Congratulations
To Dr Linda Madden for receiving her award for the year’s best PhD thesis in Geography at the NZ Geographical Society Conference in Wellington.
Marsden Club
The School is launching a “Marsden Club” this year. This is an opportunity for those thinking of applying for a RSNZ Marsden grant (full or fast-start) to get together with peers to socialise, review and discuss their applications as they are developed. If you’d like to join the Marsden Club please email Kathryn Howard, Kelly Kilpin or Franca Peverelle by 19 December.
Lab Closure
All ENV Labs will be closed over the holiday breakfrom Monday 21st of December and will reopen on Thursday 7th January 2021.
Please make sure you have packed up your experiments and cleaned up your work area by the end of Friday the 18th.
The technical staff in charge of each area will contact lab users for the annual end of year lab clean.
If you have any concerns or wish to apply to work over the break please discuss this with Blair (b.sowman@auckland.ac.nz)
If you wish to undertake field work over the break please discuss this with Blair.
Research Funding Success
Lorna Strachan, Marta Ribó and Sally Watson (NIWA) have received an Envirolink (MBIE) Grant and Marlborough District Council Funding to investigate Microplastics contamination in Queen Charlotte Sound-Tōtaranui Marine sediments. This work builds on FRDF and PBRF funded work within the area as part of the 1st Project EAST case study.
2020 Financial Year-End Deadlines
Please see below table for our 2020 year-end deadlines for purchasing and expense claims.
As most of you are already aware School/Department, PBRF & Research enhancement funds need to be spent by the end of the year and can’t be carried over to next year. The deadlines below are to ensure the expenses are captured in the 2020 year.
| Type of transaction | On or before |
| Staff reimbursements via Concur | 11th of December |
| P-Card/E-Card Reconciliations
(Reconciled, submitted and approved) |
6th January 2021
(if you are on leave, make sure you reconcile and submit before going on Christmas break) |
| Purchase Order requests | 10th of December |
| Purchase Order receipting and invoice matching | 18th of December |
| Student reimbursements requests | 10th of December |
| Customer invoice raising requests e.g. to recover costs/charge for usage | 14th of December |
| Travel Purchase order request for Orbit | 14th of December |
Health, Safety &Wellness Committee
Minutes of HSW committee meeting held on 3 Dec 2020 can be found here
Events
PhD Seminar
The seminar will be held on 9 December 2020 (Wednesday) in the Ontology Room (B302- 551).
School of Environment PhD Drinks & Nibbles
Dear Staff and PhD students,
Please join us for School of Environment PhD Drinks & Nibbles on Thursday 17 December, 4-6pm in Level 6 Breakout Space (Room 302-680).
We’d love you to come by and celebrate your contributions to the School.
Please RSVP here by Monday 7 December for catering purpose and contact Samantha Huang for any queries.
Rangahau – Research
Research and Funding Opportunities
2021 AINSE Honours Scholarships
Applications now open (applications close 15 February 2021). Flyer is available online
Eligible students from AINSE Member institutions who are enrolled in an Honours or Honours-equivalent program can now apply for the 2021 AINSE Honours Scholarship.
To be eligible for the AINSE Honours Scholarship, students must be:
– Studying at a current financial AINSE Member Institution;
– Enrolled in an Honours or Honours-equivalent Program; and
– Either the Student or Supervisor must be conducting research at ANSTO, or processing prior AINSE-sponsored research data, in collaboration with an ANSTO staff member.
AINSE Honours Scholars will receive a A$5,000 stipend to assist them in their studies.
Applications close 15 February 2021. Students must complete the online application form through the AINSE Grants Portal and supply a copy of their official Academic Transcript, along with a reference from their university supervisor/
Selection is largely based on academic achievement and each application is assessed by a specialist committee that oversees the specified area of research.
For more information, including a link to the online application form and Terms & Conditions, please visit our website or contact AINSE on +61 2 9717 3376 / enquiries@ainse.edu.au.
Marsden Fund
The Marsden Fund invests in excellent, investigator-led research aimed at generating new knowledge, with long-term benefit to New Zealand.
Three types of award are offered:
− Fast-Start: for emerging researchers – to give an impetus to their careers by promoting them as sole Principal Investigators (PI) in their own research programmes (up to $120K p.a.)
− Standard: for established and emerging researchers (up to $220-$320K p.a., varies by panel)
− Council Award: for projects that are interdisciplinary in nature, with larger teams (up to $1M p.a.)
All grants are for a maximum of three years and are GST exclusive.
Deadline: 12 noon Tuesday, 9 February 2021 (Fast start and standard EOIs, Marsden Fund Council Award FULL proposals).
Please get in touch with your RPC if you are considering applying, so that we can ensure you are registered in the portal and are kept aware of the support available to help you with your proposal.
Further information on the Marsden fund can be found here.
MBIE Catalyst: Strategic New Zealand-DLR Joint Research Programme December 2020
MBIE intends to commit NZD$1,125,000 in 2021 to support feasibility studies projects with the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in the areas of propulsion, space communications, and Synthetic Aperture Radar technologies. Each proposal must be jointly prepared as one partnership application, between at least one New Zealand RO and the DLR institute.
Deadline: 12 noon, Thursday 7 January 2021
More information, guidelines and resources can be found here.
Events
Early Stage Researcher from the Global South doing Scholarship in the Global North: Issues and Ethics
Programme details can be found here: Early Stage Researcher Workshop Flyer.
The Invitation link is: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/workshop-for-early-stage-researchers-tickets-128710116423
Please don’t hesitate to contact Valentine, should you need any further clarifications.
New Publications
- Sharp EL, Matheson A and Burgess J (2020) Doughnuts and dandelions: Reimagining our food system post Covid-19. The Spinoff.
- Marta Ribó, Helen Macdonald, Sally J. Watson, Jenny R. Hillman, Lorna J. Strachan, Simon F. Thrush, Joshu J. Mountjoy, Mark Hadfield, Geoffroy Lamarche. Predicting habitat suitability of filter-feeder communities in a shallow marine environment, New Zealand. Marine Environmental Research. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marenvres.2020.105218.
ENV IT Committee Updates
IT Committee – Software expenses in 2021
A reminder that if you are planning to request any software, limited hardware, or (new:) data, funded by ENV’s School IT budget in 2021, please send the following information to Ingo, i.pecher@auckland.ac.nz, by Fri 13 Nov:
– Requestor
– Names of staff supporting request
– Name of software/hardware/data package
– Cost (good approximation in NZD is sufficient at this stage)
– Amount of co-funding from research projects
– Classes for which software is requested
– Justification, including what would happen if you did not get the software/hardware/data
Please also do so if you request renewal of software used in 2020. We will not automatically roll over license expenses.
A few additional points:
– This only affects funding from the School budget (not research projects) with focus on teaching.
– Contribution from research budgets is expected, if funded research projects are using the requested software/hardware/data.
– Most of our software expenses are annual renewals. If we fund your request for 2021, do not automatically expect continuation in 2022.
– Hardware is very limited and falls under Capex and IT purchasing rules (computers e.g., cannot be purchased). Just submit your requests though; we will have a look.
– Data requests are new – let’s see how this goes.
Please contact Ingo for enquiries.
Other information
Need to store and share research data? Request Research storage or UoA Dropbox for research
Queries about virtual machines? Virtual machine consult or Nectar Research Cloud?
ResearchHub: connects people, resources, and services -research-hub.auckland.ac.nz
Remote working issues: Please refer to the remote working page. If you do not find the answers to your questions, please log a call on the IT Portal for any IT-related issues or contact the Staff Service Centre for other queries.
Two-factor authentication: Authy
https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/about-us/about-the-university/identity-and-access-management/two-factor-authentication/download-authy-for-desktops.html
YubiKeys work but of course require a USB port.
VPN: Instructions on how to install
VPN, Linux: FortiClient is running fine on Linux. Check the VPN link listed above.
VPN, Mac desktops: (information from April, may be outdated). Students may need IT to make their machines mobile and install FortiClient directly from the website. They will also need to set-up two-factor authentication by downloading an app like “Authy” on their phones and then setting up their University of Auckland account. I suggest people do this part before IT gets to them to make the process faster. To do that, they can use the instructions on this page:
To get a mobile account set up, log a service request or go to one of the service kiosks. It is unclear how this is being done remotely but I am sure this can be done. Please let me Ingo (i.pecher@auckland.ac.nz) know if you have managed to install FortiClient on their macs remotely.
FlexIT and Remote Access
FlexIT is straight-forward for remote access to computing power and programs. Alternatively, check if your project/group or so has a virtual machine. Remote desktop access to specific machines can be set up by IT but may note be reliable. Check the Staff Service Center https://uoaprod.service-now.com/sp.
Remote access is possible to some workstations in the geocomputational lab for research, and on a needs basis. This may be a viable solution for specialized data analysis. Please look into alternatives: It is unclear however, if/how on-site desktops can be maintained, if needed..
FlexIT access and requests: Use the FlexIT form in the IT Portal to request access as a staff member, to ask for an application be added, or to report any issues or faults.
FlexIT, Linux: Please check FlexIT link: https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/students/my-tools/flex-it.html. It does not have any information on Linux but should be useful for “translation”.
Depending on your browser (in particular, Firefox), you also need to do the following, from https://communities.vmware.com/thread/595554.
“…tested with the Horizon 4.8.x and 4.10.x clients and Firefox v64.0. Both are 64bit versions, running on Ubuntu 18.04.1
- Download the client from the VMWare Horizon Client for 64-bit Linux
- In Firefox, open about:config and click through the warning.
- Add a new boolean entry called network.protocol-handler.expose.vmware-view and set the value to false
- Create a file called `test.html` somewhere on your computer and put the following in it:
test - Open the file in Firefox and click on the link, which should prompt you for a path to open the link.
- Select /usr/bin/vmware-view and it should work for future uses! “
(1) was provided by UoA but I think it works with generic software from VMWare as well.
Check with Ingo (i.pecher@auckland.ac.nz) if you run into problems.
Software licenses: Software vendors have relaxed their licensing to allow students to install software at home, rather than relying on Flex IT. There is a running list here https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/students/my-tools/flex-it/install-software.html
Please email content to Bizza for next edition of P-cubed by Friday 18th December