Scientific Cooperation

Dumont d’Urville New Zealand / France Science & Technology support programme



In November 2005 an arrangement was signed between the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the French Ministry of National Education, Higher Education and Research and the New Zealand Ministry of Science and Innovation (MSI, formerly MORST) to promote and support scientific and technological cooperation between New Zealand and French researchers in the public, non-government and private sectors. The agreement was re-signed in 2010.

The name of the programme acknowledges the substantial scientific contribution made by the expeditions to New Zealand by French explorer Jules Sébastien César Dumont d’Urville in the early 19th century.

To support New Zealand-initiated activities under the bilateral arrangement, the New Zealand Minister of Science and Innovation, through the International Mobility Fund, has allocated annual funding up to NZ$90,000 to the “Dumont d’Urville S&T Programme” for research in the fields of food, agriculture and fisheries, biotechnology, renewable energy and energy efficiency, biodiversity and nanosciences. 

The programme is administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand.