How we’re supporting Research in Kiwi Universities


Whether it is better tracking and trapping of introduced predators in our native bush, or improved breast cancer screening technology, more and more researchers, organisations and businesses are using artificial intelligence (AI) to help tackle big problems.

In fact, we believe that there are numerous other challenges that could be addressed with AI and have made it our mission to make the benefits of these technologies available to everyone. Helping foster Kiwi AI talent with programs like digital readiness courses for teachers is a key component of that.

Today, we’re excited to announce two new programmes arriving in New Zealand.

Launch of exploreCSR
We're launching exploreCSR in New Zealand in April which aims to enhance the undergraduate experience and to motivate more women to pursue graduate study and research careers in Computer Science and related fields. Throughout the year, the awards programme promotes the design, development, and execution of regional research-focused workshops. This will be the first time the programme has been run outside the US.

Google Faculty Research Awards
In September 2019, we opened our annual call for the Google Faculty Research Awards, a program focused on supporting world-class technical research in Computer Science, Engineering and related fields at some of the world’s best computer science departments.

One outstanding Kiwi researcher will now be supported with funding for one year to help them advance their research in areas like algorithms and security:

  • Kelly Blincoe, from the University of Auckland. Kelly aims to investigate the impact of non-inclusive behaviour that happens during software code review. Her study will enable a better understanding of the impacts of a toxic code review culture, enabling better code review guidelines and tools and paving the way for future research on interventions.


For the 2019 awards, we received 917 proposals from about 50 countries and over 330 universities, with all proposals undergoing an extensive review process involving 1100 expert reviewers across Google who assessed the proposals on merit, innovation, and alignment with our research philosophy.

Congratulations again to Kelly!


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