Into the future

Entrepreneur and pitch coach Daniel Batten with students at the Future Leaders Programme

During their time at the MacDiarmid Institute, our students are not only equipped with deep scientific knowledge but also with leadership, communication and commercial skills.

Through our Careers Development Programme (CRISP), Interface Industry Challenge and spinout company process, we expose students to the realities of the business world, intellectual property, pitching and investment funding.

We send highly employable tech-savvy and business-savvy graduates into the world and watch them soar.

As of January 2019, 656 PhD students and Postdoctoral Fellows have gone through the MacDiarmid Institute and are now using their expertise to make scientific breakthroughs, achieve commercial success and be business leaders.

Bootcamp

Each year, we host 20 MacDiarmid students and postdocs at the MacDiarmid Emerging Students Association (MESA) Bootcamp. The event provides an adventurous academic experience in a remote location. Students undertake intensive research at the camp with MacDiarmid investigators. They also share their own research with each other to open up collaboration possibilities.

Business scholarships

Since 2017 we have offered competitive business scholarships to our alumni to enable them to gain business-related qualifications. The students are able to bridge academia and industry and enhance their business acumen. The aim is for scholarship recipients to use their new knowledge to identify new investments and innovative solutions and contribute to New Zealand’s high-tech manufacturing ecosystem. For information see our Business scholarships page.

Internships

As part of completing an MSc, PhD or a Post Doctoral Fellowship at the MacDiarmid Institute, we offer three to six month internships to students to enable them to gain experience in the field – either with a New Zealand business or a government agency. For more information see our Internships page.

Our Inspired One Hundred

In 2011 Sir Paul Callaghan said that ‘a hundred inspired New Zealand entrepreneurs could turn this country around’. Nearly 15 years on, we've taken a look back at our our alumni career pathways and are celebrating here many of our MacDiarmid Institute alumni who have spent time with the MacDiarmid Institute in the 22 years since Sir Paul set it up in 2002, and who have now founded start-up companies or work in deep tech start-ups or in the wider deep tech sector here in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Career and Relevant-to-Industry Skills Programme (CRISP)

CRISP is designed for MacDiarmid Institute PhD students to explore and develop the skills which will lead to success in their future careers. The diverse, non-academic range of skills on offer is relevant to a range of employment settings, from start-ups to industrial R&D, and from public institutions to professional...

Our alumni stories

We are incredibly proud of our alumni and their positive impact on the changing world in which we live. They have amazing stories to tell about their innovations and current jobs.