Applications for the Motu Thesis Scholarship are now open

Applications for the Motu Thesis Scholarship are now open.

Every year, the Motu Research and Education Foundation offers a one-year $10,000 scholarship to a promising university student of Māori descent planning to work on an Honours, Masters or PhD thesis. The preference is that this topic be in economics, or some other social science, and use a quantitative methodology.

“By offering this scholarship, we hope to encourage students of Māori descent to develop an interest in researching topics relevant to public policy development,” said Adam B Jaffe, Director of Motu Economic and Public Policy Research Trust. “Motu is committed to improving the level of public policy debate in this country and that means we’re committed to enhancing Māori research capacity.”

One of Motu’s key tasks is to build New Zealand’s ability in the area of economic and public policy research. Part of this is to improve the skills of individuals, groups and institutions to carry out empirical and theoretical research on New Zealand public policy through training, collaboration, and sponsorship of students or researchers.

“There are some amazing researchers out there,” said Dr Jaffe. “Many of them want to study overseas and the danger is that they get captured there. We’re hoping that if we help the good ones while they’re young, they might remember us fondly as they mature and come home to an international academic life in this country.”

Some past recipients of the scholarship include:

Hautahi Kingi (Nga Rauru, Te Atihaunui a Paparangi) won the 2016 scholarship and recently completed his PhD candidate in economics at Cornell University in the United States. There were two elements to Dr Kingi’s research, one around immigration and the other looking into tax and consumption. He is now working as an economist in Washington DC. His story was featured in Metro in January.

Lucy Cowie (Ngāti Ranginui), the 2015 recipient, did an honours degree in Psychology. Her dissertation focused on the role of Māori identity in predicting the extent to which people endorse environmentalism. Lucy is a research assistant at the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study in the School of Psychology at the University of Auckland.

Lara Greaves (Ngāti Kurī, Te Āti Awa, Ngāpuhi). During her scholarship year in 2014, Lara’s Masters thesis looked at proposed research on quantitative models of Māori mental, physical and financial health based on identity. She received an A+ for this work, which has now been published. Lara continues to work as the Lab Manager for The New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study, in the School of Psychology at University of Auckland. She is now a PhD student investigating how different aspects of Māori identity predict voting behaviour.

Dale Warburton (Te Āti Awa) was the first scholarship recipient in 2007. He was also an intern at Motu, where he focussed on female labour supply in New Zealand. His Masters in Geography. Thesis at Victoria University was on the effect of unpaid work on employment rates among young Māori and non-Māori females.

More information on the scholarship can be found on the Motu website. The deadline for scholarship applications is Thursday 1 December 2016. If you are interested in getting more info on this scholarship, email Isabelle Sin.

About Motu

Motu Economic and Public Policy Research is an independent economic research institute which never advocates an expressed ideology or political position. A charitable trust, Motu is founded on the belief that sound public policy depends on sound research accompanied by well-informed and reasoned debate. It is supported by the Motu Research and Education Foundation, which ensures Motu’s stability and independence and develops the policy spillover benefits from Motu’s research.

Motu is the top-ranked economics organisation in New Zealand. It is in the top ten global economic think tanks, according to the Research Papers in Economics (RePEc) website, which ranks all economists and economic research organisations in the world based on the quantity and quality of their research publications.

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