November 02, 2017
More Maori win Marsden grants
Whangai, the Young Maori Party and the first systematic study of Maori rock art are among the projects to be funded in the latest Marsden funding round.
A total of 133 research projects have been allocated just over $84 million by the fund, which supports New Zealand’s best investigator-initiated research in the areas of science, engineering, maths, social sciences and the humanities.
Outgoing Marsden Fund Council chair, Professor Juliet Gerrard says the number of Maori principal investigators of successful proposals rose from 5.9 percent last year to 9.1 percent this year.
This reflects the capacity building that has been under way for several years and, in particular, the emphasis on encouraging Maori to study right through to the PhD level.
The proposals involving Maori researchers have been judged by top international referees as highly novel. In many cases, the proposals are multidisciplinary, use Matauranga Maori, and confidently incorporate scientific and other disciplinary knowledge.
Dr Helen Potter from Te Wananga-o-Raukawa was granted $845,000 to research whangai and the adoption of Maori.
Dr Gerard O'Regan from the University of Auckland has $300,000 to develop Maori archaeology of threatened North Island rock art.
Dr Hirini Kaa, also from Auckland, gets $300,000 for his study of the Young Maori Party which he describes as Leading Iwi into Modernity.
The grants are distributed over three years and are fully costed, paying for salaries, students and postdoctoral positions, institutional overheads and research consumables.
Summaries of select projects and more information on the round is available at: https://royalsociety.org.nz/news/diverse-topics-important-for-nz-in-2017-marsden-round/
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