Tariana Turia
When the Royal Society of New Zealand decided not to shortlist the national Maori research organisation Nga Pae o te Maramatanga in the rebid process for the Centre of Research Excellence fund, Maori communities and academic researchers reacted immediately.
How would this decision enable the retention of Maori research capacity?
Although it is located in Auckland, Nga Pae o te Maramatanga is a collaboration of 16 Maori research institutes led by some of our top Maori researchers and has produced and supervised research beneficial to whanau, hapu, iwi and other organisations right across the motu.
The decision has detrimental implications for the continued investment in the centre and enormous consequences for the sustainability of Maori-led and indigenous-led research at home and abroad.
We should not underestimate the crucial role of Maori and indigenous-led research on Maori development or that of other indigenous peoples.
Nga Pae o te Maramatanga has broad research capacity enabling the organisation to supervise and support research in areas such as the Okahu Bay restoration, which focuses on the population abundance and distribution of specific shellfish in Okahu Bay, or the research which focuses on tracking phonological development (speech skills) among Maori speaking pre-school children.
Another of their projects is the Transformations of Entrepreneurial Tribal Maori Leadership research, which is the first analytical work on contemporary Maori leadership and the role it can play in the revitalisation of wealth in New Zealand.
The organisation has also supported research on the Impacts of Fracking on Indigenous Reservations in Alberta, looking specifically at the fracturing fuel-rich subterranean rock below the surface to extract oil and gas.
We all rely on good research to make decisions - whether it be strategic plans for whanau, hapu and iwi development, policy decisions in government departments, non-government organisations and companies or legislation in Parliament.
It is crucial then that Maori have equal access to robust reliable high level Maori-led research to inform our priorities for our futures.
Nga Pae o te Maramatanga and other Maori research groups have been critical in developing Maori research capacity through investment into growing the numbers of Maori researchers, the tools that Maori researchers use, links with iwi, community, and other institutions and the space for Maori methodologies to be accepted in academia.
If this organisation is not to receive funding to continue to lead Maori research then I would ask which organisation will be funded to lead Maori research?
Since the establishment of Nga Pae o te Maramatanga and other Maori-led research organisations the numbers of Maori PhD graduates have grown from around 50 to over 500. The organisation has also played key mentoring and supporting roles for Maori researchers through internships and scholarships.
While we can celebrate the more than 500 graduates, we still need to strive to increase this number to build the critical mass required to sustain the momentum of Maori success to higher levels of education.
Maori have built a reputation for leading the way for other indigenous peoples in areas such as language revitalisation and development, land rights and environmental issues.
The decision announced recently to exclude any Maori-led research organisation from funding has only resulted in marginalisation of Maori research and the mainstreaming of Maori-led research. I believe we are seeing a focus on pure economic research investment at the expense of Maori research priorities.
The development of Maori research is a vital part of the development of whanau, hapu and iwi.
Maori development is about whanau, hapu and iwi reclaiming rangatiratanga through development of human talents, our language and culture and our relationships with the natural world as the foundations of our identity as tangata whenua.
That makes Maori research crucial for our development - and for the development of this country, because Maori-led research also contributes to economic and development opportunities for all of New Zealand.