Whare Whakaaro | Resources

Internship programme

is a week-long residential internship programme designed to develop an indigenous understanding of genomics through knowledge and experience in wet-labs (biological samples, DNA), dry labs (computer analysis, biostatistics) and simulation labs (cultural and ethical scenarios). SING Aotearoa is part of the SING Consortium and hosted the inaugural SING Indigenous Genomics Conference in 2020.

Kingitanga Day Presentation on IP and Te Ao Māori

Te Mata Punenga o Te Kotahi (Te Kotahi Research Institute) hosts a number of experts and practitioners to discuss recent work on Intellectual Property and Te Ao Māori. Chris Insley (Te Arawa Fisheries Group) and Penelope Gibson (Quedo) will be discussing intellectual property relating to smart aquaculture developed by iwi and the process of registering intellectual property rights nationally and internationally for products. Manu Caddie from Hikurangi Bioactives Ltd Partnership and Tracey Whare from the University of Auckland will be sharing their work around the development of the Taonga Species and Intellectual Property Guidelines and their work focused on kānuka and kina. Te Kotahi Research Institute researchers Maui Hudson, Rogena Stirling and Katie-Lee Riddle will present their recent report on Understanding Māori Rights and Interests in Intellectual Property arising from Research and Innovation.

Watch the Kingitanga day presentation - IP and Te Ao Māori.

Mātauranga Māori

Te Ahu o Rehua connects expertise across the fields of climate change, marine science, ocean health, and non-instrument navigation as part of a network for Cross Cultural Ocean Knowledge.

Māori data sovereignty: A hot topic

Since the release of the book Indigenous Data Sovereignty: Towards an agenda in 2016, the interest in Māori data sovereignty has grown exponentially. Te Mana Raraunga and the Data Iwi Leaders Group have been strong advocates for Māori data and this led to the recent appointment of Meka Whaitiri as an Associate Minister of Statistics with responsibility for Māori data.

The key challenge moving forward is putting Māori data sovereignty into practice by developing useful mechanisms like the Māori Data Audit Tool and the Ngā Tikanga Paihere framework.

Te Kotahi Research Institute is an active contributor to this conversation. For example, read this interview with Maui Hudson about moving towards an equitable and inclusive digital future, and Computerworld's piece on our Tikanga in Technology project.

Te Mana Raraunga, the Māori Data Sovereignty Network, is explored in the Health Research Council's story on Driving indigenous data sovereignty and in Maiam nayri Wingara's History of Indigenous data sovereignty.

Taking CARE of Indigenous data

The Global Indigenous Data Alliance has been actively promoting Indigenous data sovereignty and Indigenous data governance in international forum. They released the CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance in 2019 to ensure values that resonated with Indigenous communities are included when data is shared.

Work to put this principles into practice is underway with the Research Data Alliance through the International Indigenous Data Sovereignty Interest Group. We have also engaged with the Open Data Charter who see the CARE principles as supporting Nations to address issues of Indigenous data governance. This work has also extended into the development of an IEEE recommended practice for the provenance of Indigenous peoples' data.

For more information, see this Data Science Journal article: The CARE principles for Indigenous data governance.

Indigenous data sovereignty

ENRICH supports development of Indigenous based protocols, Indigenous centered standard setting mechanisms, and machine-focused technology that inform policy, transform institutional and research practices, and reform relationships between Indigenous communities and wider society.

Indigenous genomics

Local Contexts is an initiative to support Native, First Nations, Aboriginal, and Indigenous communities in the management of their intellectual property and cultural heritage specifically within the digital environment. Local Contexts delivers Traditional Knowledge Labels, which connect tikanga to mātaraunga Māori in digital environments, and Biocultural Labels, which maintain indigenous rights to data derived from genetic resources.  

View March 2021 webinar Recognising Indigenous Rights in Digital Sequence Information by Maui Hudson