New NZ - US Partnership For Indigenous Development

Fulbright New Zealand has partnered with Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga – New Zealand’s Māori Centre of Research Excellence – to offer a range of new exchange awards in fields of indigenous development. The three new award programmes, launched in Auckland on Monday, offer New Zealand graduate students, academics, artists and professionals the opportunity to study, research, teach and present their work in the United States of America, in subject areas relating to economic development, environmental sustainability, health and social wellbeing and educational achievement within Māori communities.

The awards complement existing Fulbright exchange award programmes between New Zealand and the US, and assorted Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga funding programmes for research, capability building and knowledge exchange. Fulbright alumnus Charles Royal, Director of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, knows well the benefits of overseas exchange to expanding one’s worldview and engaging with other indigenous communities. “We are committed to achieving research excellence that will bring positive change to our communities,” he explains. “A particular feature of these new awards is that they provide opportunities for scholars to engage in the pursuit of research excellence in a context that embraces a more global sense of indigeneity.”

The inaugural recipient of the Fulbright-Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga Graduate Award was announced at Monday’s award launch. Dan Bidois from Auckland, who dropped out of school aged 15 to work as a supermarket butcher before later completing degrees in economics and marketing at the University of Auckland, will complete a Master of Public Policy degree specialising in social and economic policy at Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts. For his second-year project he will focus his research on policies and initiatives for addressing education inequality, with the hope that upon his return he can help inform education policy in New Zealand to improve the achievement of Māori and Pacific students.

Applications for the first Fulbright-Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga Senior Scholar Award will close on 1 July, and Fulbright-Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga Travel Awards in Indigenous Development will be awarded in July, November and April. Prospective applicants should see www.fulbright.org.nz for further details about the awards and how to apply.

ENDS

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