March 08, 2017
Maori research helps university to best in world
Auckland University's arts and education faculties have come near the top in class in an international survey.
The latest QS World University Rankings by Subject listed the world’s 800 best universities, including eight in New Zealand, for the study of 46 different subjects.
Auckland's Archaeology faculty was ranked 16th in the world, up from 20th last year, and Education was ranked 20th, also up three places.
Professor Simon Holdaway, the head of social science, says the QS rankings reflect the quality of work University of Auckland archaeologists carry out in the Pacific, Australia, the Near East and in New Zealand.
The faculty’s five permanent academic staff in archaeology have high international profiles and are engaged in multiple research projects, such as Professor Thegn Ladefoged's $705,000 Marsden grant study on how Maori society transformed after initial Polynesian settlement.
The key to that study is understanding the way Maori moved obsidian, a volcanic glass around the country.
Highlights in the Education faculty include Dr Melinda Webber getting a $300,000 Marsden Fast-Start grant to undertake a research project examining the distinctive identity traits of Ngapuhi, New Zealand’s largest iwi.
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