Āheitanga Thesis scholarship - applications CLOSED for 2024

Aug 26, 2024

Every year, Motu Research offers a one-year $10,000 scholarship pool to enhance research capacity in Aotearoa’s Māori community. It is offered to university students of Māori descent who are working on (or are planning to work on) an Honours, Masters or PhD thesis.  

The 2024 scholarship round was open until 4 October 2024. Applications for the scholarship are currently CLOSED until 2025.

One of Motu Research’s objectives is to build capacity in economic and public policy research in Aotearoa. We aim to improve individuals, groups and institutions' capacity and ability to do empirical and theoretical research on public policy in Aotearoa. We do this through training, collaboration and sponsorship of students or researchers. One of our aims is to make Aotearoa New Zealand a more attractive location for top researchers, including expatriate New Zealanders, to work.

Through our Āheitanga Thesis scholarship, we hope to help enhance research capacity in Aotearoa’s Māori community and help students of Māori descent research topics relevant to public policy development.

Our preference is the thesis topic is in economics, or some other social science and uses a quantitative methodology.

Based on the applicants, Motu Research decides each year if we award the scholarship pool to one candidate or split it between two candidates.

Some past recipients of the Āheitanga Thesis scholarship include:

• Mākere Hurst won the 2022 scholarship. Her PhD is in Public Policy through the School of Government at Te Herenga Waka (Victoria University of Wellington). Mākere’s PhD topic is: assessing Māori wellbeing and the relationship between Māori and natural resources, including land, on modern wellbeing outcomes.
• Taylor Winter (Ngāi Tahu) co-won the 2021 scholarship. A PhD Candidate at the School of Psychology at the Victoria University of Wellington, Taylor has a broad interest in wellbeing. He will use the scholarship to investigate how income may lead to lower levels of happiness than it has historically.
• Rangimaria Aperahama co-won the 2021 scholarship. She is completing a BA Honours in Economics through Massey University. She will use the scholarship money next year to begin a PhD expand on her current research looking at distribution in the Māori Economy.