LINCOLN A RESEARCH CENTRE

Press, 4 May 1978, Page 27

LINCOLN A RESEARCH CENTRE

By

H. G. HUNT,

who was registrar of Lincoln College from 1949 to 1976.

Lincoln has become a centre for research organisations grouped around Lincoln College. The area has many advantages for the location of such organisations — the presence of people with expertise beyond traditional teaching and research and an extensive area of rural land relatively close to the services of a major city.

The association of these groups, of course, results i>. the more efficient use of human talents and facilities and the growing international reputation of this "Lincoln brain centre” helps in the recruitment and retention of specialise staff.

The practice of poolirg equipment and services considerably increases over-all resources, and .'he cross-fertilisation of ideas and the catalyst-like efect of differing viewpoints provides a challenge and stimulation, which has a spin-off in the solution of agricultural and horticultural problems. A result of all this is that students at Lincoln study in a., environment closely relating theory with practice anc problem with solution.

Let is look at some of these organisations located in the Lincoln area. Th< Department of Scieitific and Industrial Resrfwch has long favoured placing its branches dong research close to unyersities and in 1955 it pi/chased its lease of 139 acres of college land and tjere are now on this area tie Botany, Crop Re•earch, Applied Biochemistry. Applied Mathematics. Entomology and Grasslands Divisions and the Soil Bureau.

As well the department has supported research projects at the college itself and leaders of D.S.I.R. units are appointed honorary lecturers in their special fields at the college and the department’s experimental plots and laboratories are used for demonstrations to students.

Throughout its history Lincoln College has been actively associated with the Ministry of Agriculture and it: predecessor the Department of Agriculture, with Ministry staff being , seconded to the college. The Ministry and the college are deeply involved in tile training of

meat inspectors nationally. The attachment of irrigation and drainage officers to the Agricultural Engineering Institute, the location of specialist and regional scientists within college teaching departments, the establishment in 1965 of an Animal Health Laboratory and Diagnostic Centre on five acres of land purchased from the college, and the housing of a plant health diagnostic team represent some of the other contacts.

The Wool Research Organisation, a partnership of wool producers, processors and the Government, registered in 1961 as a research association under the Incorporated Societies Act, with its staff of 90, is located in a modern laboratory built on six acres of land purchased from the college in 1963. For the first five years before it occupied its laboratory in 1967 it was accommodated within the college and since 1968 it has incorporated the Wool Industries Research Institute, formerly located at the University of Otago, which since 1937 had been servicing textile mills and since 1957 wool scourers.

Following conferences initiated by the college council in 1950, attention was focused on the need to establish an independent co-ordinating agency concerned with the overall welfare and development of the high country.

In 1960 Cabinet approved the establishment of the Tussock Grasslands and Mountain Lands Institute at Lincoln College, constituted a small but widely representative management committee and authorised its financing through the Soil Conservation and Rivers Control Council, with contributions from the Meat and Wool Boards. Since last year Government funds have been channelled through the Lands and Survey Department.

The second Lincoln institute, the New Zealand Agricultural Engineering Institute, conceived in 1946, was finally approved by the Government in 1963, with funds coming through the Ministry of Agriculture. A management committee of the college council includes expert representation from Government, agricultural, scientific, engineering and commercial interests.

Although a major reason for its establishment was the testing of safety

frames for tractors, the institute’s responsibilities ranges over agricultural and horticultural problems capable of engineering solution.

The demands for its services have always exceeded its capacity in spite of expansion in staff, and in many spheres it provides leadership internationally.