What is missing from the RSI system is not just mātauranga, it is tikanga
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.
Unless significant changes are made, any Māori researchers retained in the RSI system will face similar challenges to researchers currently within the system, namely that manaakitanga and kaitiakitanga are not embedded in the system. The RSI sector currently trains too many PhD students for research jobs that do not exist. Although this makes for a 'productive' research landscape from the perspective that talent is always available, it is brutal and demoralizing to individuals who end up under-employed for the training that they have. Even for those who graduate and manage to secure a job in the RSI sector, the precarity of employment is soul destroying. It delays people from being able to buy homes, start families, and save for retirement. It stops them being able to put roots down, because it is likely with the end of each contract, they will have to move locations. In whatever new form the RSI sector takes, valuing people and their lives needs to be at the centre of it.
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