Introduction

Since 2005, researchers and scientists in Aotearoa New Zealand who seek public funding for their work have been encouraged to situate their research in relation to the government's Vision Mātauranga (VM) policy. VM seeks to ‘unlock the science and innovation potential of Māori knowledge, resources and people’ through investment in Māori knowledge, people, resources, partnerships, and improved relations between Māori people who are indigenous to Aotearoa New Zealand, and the British Crown, represented by the New Zealand government (Ministry of Research Science and Technology, 2007). VM builds from the premise that ‘Māori success is New Zealand's success’, and the policy incentivises researchers to work with and engage with mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) in the Aotearoa New Zealand research, science, and innovation (RSI) sector. VM also supports those including mātauranga (Māori knowledge) within public outreach and science communication. Today, there is an expectation that public conferences and seminar series will include sessions on mātauranga Māori. Museum displays, such as the permanent Te Taiao exhibition at Te Papa Tongarewa: Museum of New Zealand, engage both science and mātauranga. National broadcasting imperatives to produce media in te reo Māori (the Māori language) along with VM policy saw the funding, production, broadcast, and international distribution of the television show Project Mātauranga (Douglas 2012; 2013), which ‘celebrates Māori innovation in the science sector’. Each half-hour programme showcases how mātauranga Māori is working alongside Western science (Mercier et al, 2014, p 70). Collaboration is not trivial, and many have written about the distinctions between mātauranga and science (Roberts, 1996; Jackson and Mercier, 2020; Morgan and Manuel, 2020) and explored Māori philosophy's uniqueness (Mika, 2012; Jackson, 2013; Stewart, 2021a).

The New Zealand education sector and education outreach initiatives have engaged both mātauranga and science for decades: in curriculum design for Māori language immersion and bilingual schools, within schools and universities, tertiary outreach to primary and secondary students, and cross-sector initiatives designed to ‘inspire Māori and Pacific students to see themselves as scientists’ (Mercier van Berkel, 2021, p 231). The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) Wellington Regional Science Fair has for nearly a decade offered prizes to students whose experiments or exhibits engage te reo Māori and mātauranga Māori. From 2024 onwards, the mainstream secondary school science curriculum is expected to include mātauranga.