Māori researchers are joining Indigenous scholars from Canada and Mexico in an ambitious five-year international project designed to challenge how universities conduct research and create stronger pathways for Indigenous knowledge, languages and researchers within higher education.
Researchers from Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington and Cape Breton University in Canada are co-leading the new global network, Our Research Futures: Indigenous Pathways for Research in Higher Education.
The project has secured almost $500,000 Canadian — around NZ$613,000 — from Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council through its Insight Grant programme.
Over the next five years, researchers will examine how universities internationally are adapting their structures and research practices to properly support Indigenous ways of knowing.
But the kaupapa goes beyond studying the problem.
The international team wants to develop practical frameworks capable of strengthening the success, wellbeing and long-term sustainability of Indigenous scholars and researchers working across different academic disciplines.
Māori helping lead the global conversation
The Te Herenga Waka component will be led by Dr Mike Ross from Te Kawa a Māui and Associate Professor Brian Diettrich from the New Zealand School of Music—Te Kōkī.
For Ross, the collaboration provides an opportunity for Māori researchers to learn alongside other Indigenous peoples while developing stronger and more resilient pathways for the next generation of Māori academics.
The principle underpinning that work is Kāpuia te kākaho — strength through unity.
Te Herenga Waka Deputy Vice-Chancellor Māori and Kaitiakitanga Professor Rawinia Higgins sees the project as an opportunity to build a pipeline bringing new Indigenous voices into universities and strengthening Indigenous-led research.
That pipeline is important because increasing Indigenous participation in academia is not simply about recruiting more students or researchers.
It also requires institutions where Indigenous scholars can succeed without separating themselves from their language, culture, communities and knowledge systems.
Five languages at the heart of the research
Language will be a significant feature of the project.
Research will be undertaken across te reo Māori, Mi’kmaw and Nahuatl, alongside English and French.
That multilingual approach recognises that Indigenous knowledge cannot always be fully understood when translated exclusively through English or conventional Western academic terminology.
Over five years, the project will support international gatherings, multimedia productions, translations, youth and digital learning resources, mentoring and new academic publications.
The intention is to create resources that can travel beyond university campuses and contribute to Indigenous communities themselves.
Canada, Mexico and Aotearoa connected
The network brings together Indigenous researchers and allies across Aotearoa, Canada and Mexico.
The Cape Breton University team is led by Professor Marcia Ostashweski, Director of the Centre for Sound Communities and Professor of Ethnomusicology; Laurianne Sylvester, Dean of Unama’ki College; and Starr Paul, Assistant Professor of Mi’kmaq Studies.
Members of the Canadian team have spent time at Te Herenga Waka and in Wellington during recent years, helping establish relationships that have now developed into a formal international research programme.
The Wellington team also includes Canada’s High Commissioner to New Zealand, Keith Smith, bringing experience in diplomacy and Indigenous rights frameworks.
Partnership built over several years
The project builds on a 2025 memorandum of understanding between Te Herenga Waka and Cape Breton University.
That relationship demonstrates how institutional partnerships can move beyond ceremonial agreements and develop into funded research collaborations.
Diettrich says placing responsibility to researchers and their lived experiences at the centre of the project provides an opportunity to rethink how academia itself operates.
The Canadian partnership also opens another potential avenue for New Zealand researchers seeking international research funding, particularly within the humanities and social sciences.
Who decides what counts as knowledge?
Behind the project sits a much bigger question for universities.
Academic institutions have historically been shaped predominantly by Western traditions determining how knowledge is produced, assessed, published and recognised.
Indigenous scholars can therefore encounter systems where their own methodologies, community responsibilities and knowledge traditions do not always fit conventional academic structures.
Mātauranga Māori, for example, can involve relationships between whakapapa, whenua, reo, tikanga, community and intergenerational knowledge that cannot necessarily be separated into the categories traditionally preferred by universities.
Creating Indigenous research pathways therefore requires more than adding Māori or Indigenous content to existing academic systems.
It means examining whether the systems themselves need to change.
Building a pathway for the next generation
For Te Herenga Waka, the long-term opportunity is to strengthen the environment encountered by future Māori researchers.
That means supporting emerging academics through mentorship, connecting rangatahi with Indigenous research and ensuring established scholars can continue their mahi without cultural responsibilities becoming barriers to academic progression.
Te Herenga Waka Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research Professor Sally McArthur says the international collaboration also demonstrates what can be achieved when universities work across borders to secure funding and collectively develop new resources.
Over the next five years, the project will test whether those relationships can produce something even more significant — a model for universities where Indigenous knowledge is not positioned at the margins of research but helps determine its future direction.
From te reo Māori in Aotearoa to Mi’kmaw in Canada and Nahuatl in Mexico, the kaupapa connects different peoples through a shared ambition: ensuring the next generation of Indigenous researchers doesn’t simply find a place inside universities, but has the power to reshape what universities understand knowledge to be.
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