Image: Director of Te Pūnaha Matatini, Associate Professor Priscilla Wehi, is excited to welcome three new partners on board.
30 October 2023
Te Pūnaha Matatini is thrilled to announce that it has partnered with three new institutions: NIWA, Toha and Cawthron Institute. This enlarges Te Pūnaha Matatini’s network of partnerships to fifteen institutions across Aotearoa New Zealand.
All three of these new partner institutions have an environmental focus, which clearly demonstrates the direction that Te Pūnaha Matatini, the Aotearoa New Zealand Centre for Research Excellence in complex systems, is moving in.
Director of Te Pūnaha Matatini Associate Professor Priscilla Wehi is excited to welcome these new partners on board. “We value the thought leadership of our new partners,” says Cilla. “Their approaches to both the culture of research and engaging with communities align very much with our own.”
“Their researchers bring a wealth of experience in transdisciplinary research and approaches such as mātauranga Māori, freshwater systems and nature based solutions, which will bring depth and innovation to our future research.”
NIWA, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, is a Crown Research Institute that conducts leading environmental science to enable the sustainable management of natural resources for Aotearoa New Zealand and the planet.
Dr Rob Murdoch, Deputy CEO of NIWA, said that “NIWA is pleased to become a partner with Te Pūnaha Matatini, as the environmental issues we deal with are some of the most complex and critical issues of our time. Our principal investigators will benefit from new collaborations and approaches in their areas of remote sensing, flood forecasting and the marine food web. We look forward to developing improved solutions in the light of increasing extreme events across the atmosphere, freshwater and marine domains.”
Toha is working to bridge the gap between finance and environmental action. They have developed the infrastructure to allow regenerative outcomes to be reliably measured, quantified and traded in the market. They are convening a network to accelerate the flow of impact investment into frontline nature-based solutions to climate change with urgency and scale.
Chief Science Officer and Co-Founder of Toha, Dr Shaun Hendy, says that “The Toha Network is very pleased to partner with Te Pūnaha Matatini. As an organisation, we are both a consumer and producer of high-quality research, but this new collaboration with the leading minds in complex systems research represents a levelling up for us.”
Cawthron Institute is Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest independent science organisation. They deliver world-class science that helps to protect the environment and support the sustainable development of primary industries in Aotearoa New Zealand and worldwide.
“Cawthron Institute was eager to join Te Pūnaha Matatini as a partner to enable our researchers to collaborate on complex and transdisciplinary research that addresses the critical challenges we’re facing in Aotearoa New Zealand,” says Chief Science Officer, Dr Cath McLeod. “There is a strong alignment of values and objectives between Cawthron and Te Pūnaha Matatini, making partnership a natural fit. Cawthron is committed to delivering research that creates a better future and we know that fostering collaboration and connection across Aotearoa New Zealand’s research, science and innovation system is critical to achieving that vision.”
All three partner institutions have researchers that are affiliated with Te Pūnaha Matatini as principal investigators, and we look forward to seeing the innovative research that comes out of these partnerships.