Tertiary education organisations are an integral part of our research system and must be included in any restructuring of the research system

The Te Ara Paerangi green paper states that its focus is considering changes to institutions that are within the Research, Science and Innovation ministerial portfolio, while not 'actively considering structural or design changes to TEOs (tertiary education organisations)" (p. 8). In Chapter 4. NGĀ HINONGA INSTITUTIONS, the focus is specifically on Crown Research Institutes, questioning the functionality of their research goals and institutional structure, given the emerging problems and possibilities within Aotearoa. Additionally, a key relationship mentioned multiple times in the document is the one between Crown Research Institutes and other research institutions such as tertiary education organisations. This relationship is vital when pursuing dynamic, fluid and collaborative knowledge production. But, while the green paper makes a strong argument for restructuring and rethinking one end of this relationship, it fails to recognise that creating a healthy research culture across institutions will also require similar rethinking and restructuring of tertiary education organisations.

Many of the limitations of Crown Research Institutes identified by the green paper on page 52, as highlighted by the Te Pae Kahurangi report, also apply to the current state of tertiary education organisations. These include lack of role clarity, unhelpful competition, siloed strategies and priority setting, inability to adapt to changing contexts, and poor financial and organisational resilience. Reports on universities of Aotearoa have pointed to the following;

the unmanageable, yet widely pursued, international student market and the financial reliance of tertiary education organisations on international students(1)
the fact that policy reforms in the past four decades have failed to address issues of representation and funding, and that assessment of such reforms remains in its infancy(2)
Performance-based research funding processes which systemically undervalue the volume, scope and quality of Māori and Pasifica designed and led research(3), adding to their ongoing exclusion from all tertiary education organisations(4)
the ongoing institutional reliance on precariously hired faculty on fixed term contracts(5)
lack of an ethics of care within tertiary education organisations and how this undermines collective resilience of the institution while supporting competition which induces vulnerability among the students(6).

These examples are just a snapshot of the significant limitations within our tertiary education organisations, which require an active, sustained and collaborative response, much like the green paper is suggesting for the Crown Research Institutes.

A transformation of the institutional and funding culture and pathways of tertiary education organisations is critical to achieving the proposed opportunities for change as identified in Te Ara Paerangi. As the paper has discussed, the overall research ecosystem of Aotearoa needs to move towards a more collaborative, less complicated, and more efficient system. This cannot be achieved simply by reforming Crown Research Institutes, which are but one entity within the national research ecosystem. The changes envisioned by the green paper need to focus on relationships.

However, along with a focus on relationships between different research institutions, there should also be a focus on relationships within research institutions. Tertiary education organisations play a critical role in the national research ecosystem. Transforming the way knowledge is produced, managed, assessed and distributed within this ecosystem will require a concerted effort at addressing the issues identified above. Without such efforts, the transformation of Aotearoa’s public research system will end up reproducing the current limitations it is aiming to resolve.

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