The Cawthron Institute started out as just a handful of scientists but has grown to a world-leading scientific organisation which can now boast a century of research.
Nestled in suburban Nelson for 100 years, its many achievements often go unnoticed, something chief executive Volker Kuntzsch is trying to change.
"When I talk to people in Nelson here about what Cawthron does, often the response is 'I don't really know', but the sciences we do are fascinating."
Thomas Cawthron was a wealthy Nelson businessman and philanthropist who died in 1915. In his will, he left the equivalent, in today’s terms, of $100 million to start a research institute in his name.
The Cawthron Institute began in 1921 and initially focused on agriculture research like hops and pip fruit. But over the years scientists were looking for new areas to explore.
Paul Gillespie has been at Cawthron for more than 50 years and says innovation is a key part of the organisation. “Cawthron has done that for a long time, it looked and try to find, in order to keep the funding coming in, it looked at areas that were under-researched in New Zealand and sort of moved into those areas.”
One of those areas was coastal and estuary research, which Gillespie has been at the forefront of. One of his favourite projects was creating a tool to help the Government monitor the health of estuaries.
"I thought probably it would be very useful to understand how they function and get that across to people so we can understand better how to manage them."
In more recent times marine and freshwater environment research are what the institute is best known for, as well as developing sustainable aquaculture and dairy sectors.
It also now has a Māori business development team, which marine scientist Heni Unwin is part of. “In a practical sense, my job entails going out into Māori communities and talking with them ... and help them to incorporate their knowledge system, their value system and what we can do from a Māori paradigm in science as well.”
The Cawthron Institute is now the country’s largest independent research centre with more than 300 staff, something Kuntzsch is very proud of. “The scientists we have, they are from 35 different countries. A lot of them are famous in their field worldwide.”
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