Chief Executive Update
Through May the Society Council and senior staff have had the opportunity to engage with many stakeholders from Māori research communities – the three wānanga (based in Ōtaki, Whakatāne and Te Awamutu), Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga (the Centre of Research Excellence in Māori research), Te Ara Pūtaiao (a working group within Science New Zealand) and the Waikato Tainui College for Research and Development.
The purpose is for the Society to better understand mātauranga, research methods such as rangahau (the traditional method of inquiry), and how Māori communities go about determining the excellence or not of research undertaken with or to support them.
The discourse has been open and challenging. It has brought into focus the significant importance of knowledge holding, something that is less considered in modern science. It has challenged us to think about the extent to which the way we express our criteria and attempt to measure excellence is inadvertently penalising Māori researchers and leaders, leading to fewer Māori in the ranks of our Companions and Fellows relative to the contribution they are making to knowledge discovery, holding and sharing in this country. In some ways this is similar to what occurred ten years ago when the humanities re-entered the Society – then we had to learn so we could recognise forms of excellence that were not so evident in science and technology. We will be increasing challenged by the creative arts in the future. We have recognised some people from this field already, where the research and new knowledge content is clearly discernible. There may be other valid cases that lie outside our present criteria.
So we will continue to see the challenge of recognising multiple forms of excellence, evaluated in very different ways not as a problem, but as a necessary journey for the Society to be relevant in the future.
Dr Andrew Cleland FRSNZ - Royal Society Te Apārangi Chief Executive
Royal Society Te Apārangi: 31 May