Annual Symposium 2025 - Annual Report 2025

31 May, 2026

Hosted at Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland in November, our annual symposium in 2025 was one of the largest we've held in recent years, attended by well over 200 Investigators, early career researchers and students.

Attendees at the MacDiarmid Institute annual symposium 2025

The event started with an alumni evening (featured in 'Into the future'), followed by a full day of talks from a wide range of Institute members and invited speakers. Professor Sir Peter Gluckman spoke to the Institute about challenges currently facing the science sector. Dr Mike Dickison gave a lightning talk on the use of Wikipedia as a science outreach tool, while Professor Zhiping Lai, visiting from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, spoke about novel direct lithium extraction technologies designed to selectively recover battery-grade lithium from low-grade brines.

The programme also featured eight talks from students and early career researchers from across the Institute's four research programmes, as well as presentations from the Institute's deputy directors with regard to their respective portfolios: Professor Pauline Harris (Māori), Associate Professor Natalie Plank (Commercialisation and Industry Engagement) and Associate Professor Anna Garden (Outreach and Education).

The second day of the symposium gave our Investigators the opportunity to meet up within their programmes and hear about ongoing projects and work towards meeting the Institute's research plan objectives. The MacDiarmid Emerging Scientists Association (MESA) also met up separately on this day to discuss their plans for the future and look back at everything they achieved in 2025.