Retaining Māori entering the RSI sector as researchers
This snippet comes from the submission of the Indigenous Genomics Institute. Ko wai mātou? The Indigenous Genomics Institute (IGI) (currently an LLC in the process of transferring to a charitable trust) began coalescing in 2020 in recognition that a gap existed in the RSI ecosystem in “for Māori, by Māori” guidance and leadership around genomics. We aim to be a resource and a voice for Māori communities, hapū, and iwi when it comes to educating whānau about genomics, empowering them to utilise genomics for their own kaupapa, and engaging with genomics researchers.
It can be a lonely experience being Māori within the RSI sector. When Māori are under-represented, they are more likely to (a) experience “unsafe” workspaces e.g. they may witness colleagues being disrespectful in their attitudes towards working with Māori communities or may experience disparaging remarks about “Māori stuff” and (b) be overworked due to their ‘dual role’ (as acknowledged within the green paper). One solution is to ensure cohort hires. For departments/institutions without Māori, the emphasis should be on hiring multiple Māori researchers in cohort hires to ensure a strong peer-to-peer support network.
In addition, the RSI sector could be doing a far better job upskilling Tangata Te Tiriti researchers, so that the burden of educating (including in situations when power dynamics may make this very difficult) does not full solely on Māori researchers. A minimum level of competency for all researchers in the RSI sector around appropriate tikanga, New Zealand history, and respectful engagement with Māori communities is necessary to increase the comfort/safety of Māori communities who interact with these researchers, and of Māori researchers within the system. RSI institutions should implement performance assessment and hiring practices that includes prioritizing competency in these areas and facilitate the necessary training to ensure staff can increase their competency.
An additional issue of promotion and progression within the RSI system, is whether the “outputs” of Māori researchers are valued, and whether the researchers feel like they have the freedom to pursue research of interest to them and their communities. If the reimagining of ‘research priorities’ proposed by the green paper explicitly includes Māori aspirations, then this may address the issue of Māori researchers feeling like they belong within the RSI system. Adequately and fairly assessing the outputs of Māori researchers, however, will require some changes. For example, although there are some great examples in the published literature of the intersection of mātauranga and the current RSI system (for example Clapcott et al., 2018; McAllister, Beggs, et al., 2019; Mercier & Jackson, 2019; Wehi et al., 2019), publications are not the right ‘currency’ to measure benefits accruing to local communities from their interactions with RSI. This results in researchers who work with communities in this manner being systematically devalued under traditional metrics of academic success (e.g. number of publications, H-index etc). This may be able to be solved by listening to Māori communities who work with RSI researchers about their perception of the impact of the research, however, the larger point is that how research impact is defined is important and it should not be defined solely in economic and scientific outputs.
Māori on average have families when they are younger (Stats NZ, 2019), and currently, no paid parental support is offered to students who wish to start families (McAllister et al., 2021). This, and inadequate levels of parental support for workers within universities (McAllister et al., 2021) appears to contribute to knock-on impacts in underrepresentation of women at more senior levels, likely compounded for wāhine Māori (Walker et al., 2020). Instead of forcing women to choose between whānau and training within the RSI sector, parental leave should be remedied to an internationally acceptable level, including extending this to students. In addition, although the extension of eligibility following childbirth (and/or other reasons for taking time away from work) for Marsden and Rutherford funding is excellent, potentially this grace period should also be extended to graduate students who have a child during their degree. In addition to parental support, creating environments where people feel free to bring their babies and children to work (within reason – obviously not in dangerous lab areas!) would hew more closely to values held within Te Ao Māori.
One additional problem is that under the current RSI system, funding targeted at individual researchers (e.g. Marsden, Rutherford) is largely contingent on an institution agreeing to host the individual if they are successful in obtaining funds. Because neither of these awards can cover full salary (Marsden Fast-Starts at current funding are too limited to fund a FTE=1.0 postdoc with overheads) and/or overheads (Rutherford postdoc/discovery fellowship), the researcher/institution needs to (a) cover the shortfall in salary (e.g. through teaching contracts, other grants etc) and/or (b) accept a “loss on the books” of overhead. This has led to some Māori researchers being blocked by their current institution from applying for these grants: another lever removing Māori from the pipeline.
References:
Clapcott, J., Ataria, J., Hepburn, C., Hikuroa Dan, Jackson, A.-M., Kirikiri, R., & Williams, E. (2018). Mātauranga Māori: shaping marine and freshwater futures. New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 52(4), 457–466.
McAllister, T. G., Beggs, J. R., Ogilvie, S., Kirikiri, R., Black, A., & Wehi, P. M. (2019). Kua takoto te mānuka: mātauranga Māori in New Zealand ecology Te Whānau a Āpanui. New Zealand Journal of Ecology, 43(3), 3393.
Mercier, O., & Jackson, A.-M. (2019). Mātauranga and Science - Introduction. New Zealand Science Review, 75(4), 63–64.
Wehi, P. M., Beggs, J. R., & McAllister, T. G. (2019). Ka mua, ka muri. New Zealand Journal of Ecology, 43(3), 1–8.
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