Kanapu gets $6.5 million injection to grow Māori research workforce

Research, Science and Innovation Minister Ayesha Verrall. Photo / RNZ / Samuel Rillstone

The Government is investing $6.5 million into a programme set to enhance Māori employment outcomes in the research, science and innovation workforce.

Kanapu is a by Māori, for Māori research programme, which aims to grow the numbers of Māori in the sector to address the pressures they face in growing the workforce and ensuring their perspectives and expertise are represented.

Research, Science and Innovation Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall said the programme would help Māori researchers flourish across all points of their careers.

"Kanapu, means 'lightning' or 'instantaneous glow' and it will create programmes that connect Māori researchers across research institutions, including those in iwi and hapū communities," Verrall said.

The programme was funded out of the Expanding the Impact of Vision Mātauranga initiative from Budget 2020, where $33m was allocated towards a commitment to the growth of talent within the research workforce.

Verrall said the ministry was seeing more opportunities where mātauranga Māori experts were able to contribute distinct thinking on issues such as climate change, among other issues that were lacking in a perspective from within te ao Māori.

"Māori researchers at the beginning of their careers in research institutes are often under pressure to work two roles - their research role and additionally, a frequently unpaid role to provide cultural leadership," she said.

With few Māori research mentors to guide them through these unique and added pressures, Māori researchers could experience burnout and leave the research workforce, she said.

Verrall hoped employment outcomes of Māori within the workforce would be enhanced through this initiative.

It will be designed and delivered by New Zealand's Māori Centre of Research Excellence, Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga at the University of Auckland.

Verrall said the programme was another way for the Government to strengthen the beneficial perspective that Māori brings to the table through knowledge, culture, and values.

"These researchers already have strong networks throughout the country, but it's about strengthening those, and making sure when new Māori researchers come through, they are both well connected within their discipline, but also within their rohe."

They were an important part of the five-year-long programme, and to the science workforce as a whole, because the science produced must be responsive to the communities it concerns, as well as the end users, she said.

"We will get better solutions out of our scientists if they have better connections to their communities."

- RNZ