April 23, 2024
Māori community-based researchers supported
A Waikato University-based project to create opportunities for Māori researchers, scientists and mātauranga practitioners is looking to encourage more flax-roots projects.
Kanupu was set up in 2022 with a $6.5 million budget to promote for Māori, by Māori research, science, and innovation.
Director Vanessa Clark of Waikato-Tainui says this year it is running a programme, Uematarau, to allow doctoral students to stay in their own communities researching everything from mātauranga Maori to the environment and building up vital skills.
“And becoming the mātanga, and the tohunga in those settings as well. So, I don’t think it’s a one or the other thing. I definitely think we need all the different diversity of thought, diversity of practices, across te ao Maori,” she says.
Ms Clark says Kanupu is building on the foundation laid by the multi-university Maori centre for excellence, Nga Pae o te Maramamatanga, which has helped foster 800 PhDs in just 20 years.