A small collection of recent NPM project reports highlighting the quality and breadth of our research and researchers have been made available on our site. These three projects were completed in 2015 and look at: the challenges faced by Māori academics, how mātauranga Māori can inform farming practice and how the quality of te reo Māori can be enhanced for future generations.

The project Māori Academic Socialisation and the University explored the ways that Māori and Pacific senior scholars become academics; how they shape their interactions and relationships with their institutions of higher learning; how they engage with their disciplines; and, how they transform academic knowledge in ways that support and sustain their cultural and tribal communities as well as contribute to national development. The project also investigated the institutional challenges experienced by Māori and Pacific faculty who work within universities and Wānanga. You can read through the outcomes and outputs of this research here.

He Ahuwhenua Taketake - Indigenous Agroecology looked at how mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) can inform and generate innovation in farm practices. It focuses on guardianship of the land and the waters that flow through it, based on the traditional and contemporary experience of Māori agricultural practitioners. Read the online research report here.

Kia areare ki ngā Reo o ngā Tīpuna dates back 27 years to when Dr Joe Te Rito helped establish local Māori radio station Radio Kahungunu at the Hawke’s Bay Polytechnic. Joe saw how the dialect of his iwi Rongomaiwahine-Ngāti Kahungunu was diminishing in quality and in looking for a solution started recording interviews with his elders. The research project, which began in 2009, focused on recordings of two of these elders and looked for ways in which the quality of te reo Māori being used today can be improved, and then transferred on to the next generation. View the book Pukapuka Kōrero Tahi online now.