Chief Executive Update
It was a pleasure to attend the admission ceremony for Ngā Ahurei hou a Te Apārangi, New Fellows, on 29 April. New Fellows strengthen the body of the Society and add new dimensions to it, and I am glad and proud that the Society is coming to grips with other ways of knowing.
The Fellows and Members of the Society are an essential puna, or reservoir, of expertise and knowledge, enabling the Society and the good work it does, and although it is a complex organisation, it could not exist without their puna and their convening experience, and I hope Fellows and Members don’t mind being tapped on the shoulder to contribute.
The Society has ambitious plans, with its Council going through a strategic planning process and extensive consultation, to reset what we do. What is the point of having expertise if we do not contribute to the challenges we face - like climate change, health equity and having a fair and just society? We have to be prepared to step up in a more proactive way that uses our wealth of expertise to inform these challenges.
We also have a unique role. On my first day as Chief Executive, I was approached by the Royal Society of Canada who were asking if the Society could run a seminar on incorporating indigenous knowledge, as New Zealand was the only country in the world that they could think would be able to do it. This mix of indigenous and western sciences is our unique opportunity to give great hope to others, to learn from the sciences, humanities, and mātauranga, and take them into our practice. The value of research, clear communication, leadership, and being in it together, was clear over COVID, and we want to do the same for incorporating indigenous knowledge to make sense of the world we live in.
In my upcoming role as Governor-General, I will become the patron of Royal Society Te Apārangi, and I look forward to continuing to work with this important institution for New Zealand.