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EIT Researcher Celebrated In International Awards

June 28, 2010

The quality of a research article written by EIT Hawke’s Bay research professor Mark Neal has been internationally recognised in awards made by leading global publishers of academic journals and books.

Every year, Emerald Group Publishing Ltd invites its editorial teams – which include eminent academics and managers – to nominate papers for the Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence.

The worldwide network encompasses some 70,000 experts in their fields, and the awards recognise the achievements of authors, editors and reviewers, celebrating their outstanding contributions to the body of knowledge.

Professor Neal, who took up the newly created position of full-time research professor in EIT’s Faculty of Business and Computing last year after teaching posts in Mauritius, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Thailand, was highly commended for his article Supervenience in socio-economic systems which appeared in the Emerald publication Humanomics.

British-born, the well-travelled educator describes his job at EIT as “absolutely brilliant”.

“Doing research is what I love. I love writing and developing ideas. I am interested in different cultures and politics and am able to explore my interests as a full-time job.”

Professor Neal’s research into Arab leadership issues resulted in an invitation earlier this year to a conference initiated by New York University in Abu Dhabi. The university paid for his flights and accommodation to the three-day event which brought together a hand-picked group of “pretty high-powered academics” from the Middle East and the USA.

Having considered local issues that might benefit from research, Professor Neal has identified migrant workers from Pasifika, disaster preparedness and management and bio security surrounding efforts to contain the spread of didymo as among key areas of interest.

In his EIT role, he is establishing the research structure and plans for his faculty and sourcing funding for research projects. The appointment is expected to result in more research outputs which has become an increasingly important focus for EIT.