You’ve studied hard and made sacrifices to be the best at what you’re passionate about. Now you’re wondering how to get the most out of the next critical step. Where do you go for a world-class postgraduate programme offering power and flexibility, as well as an unbeatable work and social environment? Is it possible to find a country with internationally renowned institutions, top class mentorship and supervision, ultramodern facilities and multicultural environments, an emphasis on independent research, good links to business, as well as a fantastic lifestyle? Absolutely!

Here are 10 reasons why New Zealand should be top of your list of places to do your postgraduate studies.

Kiwis know what it’s like to seek knowledge abroad. Being at the bottom of the world didn’t stop the best New Zealanders from unlocking the secrets of the atomic nucleus (Ernest Rutherford,) or the mysterious DNA helix (Maurice Wilkins,) or climbing Mount Everest (Edmund Hillary,) or leading NASA’s first explorations into space (William Pickering). But to do these things they had to head off overseas and partner up with top international institutions. The knowledge they brought back helped New Zealand to design a world-class education system.

Sometimes it’s an advantage to be perched at the bottom of the world. The Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs (Comnap) is the global organisation responsible for co-ordinating the Antarctic research activities of 29 nations. It is located at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand – which has been the jumping-off point for Antarctic exploration for nearly a century! It’s a prime example of how Kiwis are bringing together the research world.

Being at the bottom of the world, while staying at the top of your game, means working hard on our communication architecture. Today’s high-speed digital technology means micro-seconds rather than miles separate you from any resource on the planet. With their unique way of approaching education, we look at how New Zealand is placed to take advantage of these developing technologies and harness their potential for learning.

The Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network (KAREN) is an exclusive broadband network linking education, research and innovation organisations in New Zealand, and across the world. KAREN provides a super fast, unrestricted broadband service many hundreds of times faster than a standard internet connection. More than 220,000 students, researchers and educators at over 100 New Zealand universities, polytechnics, schools and government agencies have access to KAREN, as well as scientists at Crown Research Institutes across the country, and the international network links to over 200 million advanced network users worldwide.

KAREN is unique because unlike standard networks KAREN is unconstrained. This means you can access as much information, tools, people and content as you wish without usage-based charges. In essence, KAREN is a huge pipe sending a torrent of pure, unadulterated information between New Zealand and the rest of the world.

Power isn’t everything, but when it comes to conducting important research, more is definitely better. Today’s researchers often collect massive amounts of data, which need to be processed before results can be determined and conclusions reached. In New Zealand, researchers from all universities have a chance to access the fastest computer in the country. New Zealand’s IBM Blue Gene supercomputer (the only one in the Southern Hemisphere) is called BlueFern® and it is a data-crunching monster. The machine has 1024 dual‐core 700 MHz CPUs per rack making a total of 4096 cores for both racks. This gives it a theoretical peak performance of 11.2 Teraflops. But BlueFern® is also the “greenest” of supercomputers, consuming a maximum of 26.5 Kilowatts per rack.

The BlueFern® system is helping the next generation of researchers to crunch through data on everything from the elastographic imaging of soft tissue, to weather prediction, to global bird phylogeny.

Maybe your project could be the next to benefit from BlueFern®’s awesome computing power.

To be the best on Earth you have to reach for the stars. That’s why New Zealand has put in a bid to be part of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope project. The SKA will combine the signals received from thousands of small antennae spread over a distance of more than 3000 km to simulate a single giant radio telescope. This simulated telescope will be capable of extremely high sensitivity and angular resolution.
Five New Zealand universities have agreed to collaborate to make New Zealand the base for part of an international scientific mega-project which will provide researchers with an unprecedented view of the celestial bodies. The potential for exciting new discoveries regarding the origin of our universe will revolutionise not only astronomy and physics, but many other areas of science. The importance of SKA has led it to be hailed by some as the greatest scientific project of the 21st Century.
New Zealand wants its students to become part of this global collaboration which seeks answers to fundamental questions about origin and evolution of the Universe.

Meanwhile, back on Mother Earth.

As one of the world’s youngest countries, New Zealand has a youthful spirit. With its native rainforests, its pristine beaches, its unspoilt mountains and its wealth of outdoor and adventure activities, New Zealand has become the envy of students all over the World. The country boasts some unique native flora and fauna which can be enjoyed in peace and serenity, or glimpsed briefly while streaking past in a jet-boat at 100 miles-per-hour. Whether the amazing wildlife, tourist attractions, and landscape are the focus of your studies, or just there for you to enjoy in your spare time, they make New Zealand one of the most enviable places in the world to live and study. It sure beats the same old scenery at home!

New Zealand is also a cultural capital with world-class arts festivals, unbeatable cuisine, and a lot of sport. 2011 sees events ranging from the Rugby World Cup, to the Pasifika Festival, to the Taekwon-do World Championships. Knock yourself out.

But let’s not get distracted by too much culture. We have work to do.

Research is at the core of New Zealand’s educational approach. Good projects have the power to change societies, benefit humanity and solve some of the major problems our planet faces.

As such, New Zealand’s Centres of Research Excellence (COREs) have developed a strong presence in New Zealand’s research environment since their establishment in 2002. These Centres do cutting edge study in areas from Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, to Molecular Ecology and Evolution, to Bio-Protection Research Technologies, to Mathematics and its Applications, among others. New Zealand now has eight Centres of Research Excellence which bring universities together to work on common projects and goals. These collaborative organisations enable researchers to work together to produce truly innovative, ground breaking science, as well as train a new generation of scientists.

Academia and business can sometimes appear to be on different planets, but in New Zealand they work together for everyone’s benefit. Commercial application of university research is generating a billion dollars per year for the New Zealand economy, and University Commercialisation Offices are working hard to match the interests of local and international businesses with researchers developing new products or tools. Acknowledging that universities are an essential part of New Zealand’s infrastructure, the New Zealand government, along with the commercial sector, has been working to implement policies such as increased public investment in universities, and greater flexibility around student fees policy. The aim of this is to enhance the universities’ ability to contribute to national development.

The advantages for postgrads are obvious. Instead of waiting for grant money, researchers in New Zealand could be on their way to making it big as entrepreneurs.

New Zealand’s international student body brings in people from 168 countries - that’s just about every country in the world. Add visiting researchers, faculty and university staff and you get an extremely exciting and dynamic knowledge community.

The 10-year trend for the proportion of international graduates in the total university graduate population has seen that proportion grow from 6.3% in 1997 to 19.2% in 2006. Choosing New Zealand for your postgraduate research gives you the chance to connect with your peers from all over the planet.

Additionally, of international graduates in 2006, 54.8% were female, and 45.2% were male. For women, New Zealand’s education system provides certain unique advantages including a range of specialist scholarships, grants and awards. The New Zealand Federation of Graduate Women also works to improve the status of women and girls, promote lifelong education, and enable graduate women to use their expertise to effect change. They also assist women in developing countries by means of grants, donations, scholarships and through networking and attending international conferences.

Diversity brings challenges and opportunities, so New Zealand is working hard to design systems to accommodate the surge in interest for its world-class and totally unique education system.

If you’re keen to work in New Zealand, then New Zealand is keen to work for you. Many foreign-born post-graduates have stayed to build lives in this paradise. This small nation prides itself on being a fair-minded place with an equitable work environment, and its business sector has a constant thirst for new talent with fresh ideas.

Employment rates for New Zealand foreign-born postgraduates are impressive. If you’ve finished your postgraduate studies you have a 92.3% likelihood of employment after 1 year, 92.2% after two years, and if you decide to stay in New Zealand for 10 years or more you have a 97.5% likelihood of a permanent job that’s almost exactly the same as a New Zealand-born post-graduate.

For the foreign-born postgraduate, going on to live and work in New Zealand certainly has its benefits.

And there’s more …

So sure, New Zealand has a great location and environment, a giant radio-telescope, a supercomputer, a high-speed data-pipe, eight Centres of Research Excellence, cultural diversity, and links to the business community. And if all this isn’t enough, New Zealand and its tertiary institutions are continuously working to create new reasons for international students to consider jetting down to the sunny South Pacific: from an emphasis on collaborative research projects both at home and internationally, to its grants and scholarships, to its policy of the same domestic tuition fees for New Zealand and international doctoral students.

Another important attribute of the New Zealand education system is that there is an even spread of international students across its tertiary institutions (with an understandable leaning towards Auckland due to its population density.) This shows how the country has managed to design an education system which performs to a high level right across the board.

Add to all this an emphasis on independent research, the high quality of study mentorship and supervision, ultramodern facilities and multicultural environments and you get a powerhouse of innovation and quality set within a South Pacific paradise.

Thanks to the quality and quantity of New Zealand’s international students, the country is building a reputation as the United Nation(s) of Knowledge.