Message from Academy Chair
Distinguished Professor Geoff Chase shares his first foreword as Chair of the Academy Executive Committee.
Tēnā koutou katoa, and warm greetings to all reading this short missive, which is part introduction and part update. After serving as Deputy Chair of the Academy Executive Committee (AEC) for one year and being on the committee as the TASE (Technology, Applied Sciences and Engineering) domain leader since 2019, it was an honour to be elected Chair. I look forward to working with all the Fellows and Companions who make up the Academy to enrich and grow Royal Society Te Apārangi.
As I take this position in the AEC, I can look back on my last 4+ years on the Committee and serving wider domains of the New Zealand Research ecosystem, and know one thing for certain – and that is that change has and is occurring. Over the last four years, and even before, we have seen significant changes in the structure and function of both the Academy, and the New Zealand research ecosystem as a whole. I believe these changes are not finished, and we will continue to see more as we go forward, some with promise and others that will be more challenging.
Foremost, I see my role as helping provide leadership to the Academy in these times, and a voice from the Academy to the wider world through the AEC and Royal Society Te Apārangi. In particular, I look forward to seeing the Academy continue to grow and deepen our strength in recognising all forms of knowledge and excellence. Equally, I would like to see the Society, and the AEC in particular, take a strong and leading role in helping shape the seemingly inevitable changes coming to New Zealand’s research sector.
Spring has always been a time of rebirth and harbinger of positive change. So, while we face coming times where too little may seem typical, or as it was, we also face opportunities to celebrate the excellence we have always embodied and work together to ensure it helps drive New Zealand towards positive futures.
My predecessor, Professor Macdonald, is an historian, but as an engineer, I am much less given to quoting the past. This one time, however, I will do so with a personal favorite I think applies to our future as an Academy and for New Zealand research as a whole:
To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.— Cardinal John Henry Newman (1845)
Finally, I would like to note recent events since taking over, in particular the election of three outstanding new Companions who will be celebrated on 11 October at the Society in Wellington, and the ongoing process of determining who our next Fellows will be. What is already determined is the shape of our medals, prize, and award winners for 2023, who will be celebrated at our three Research Honours Aotearoa (RHA) events in November in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch.
I would especially note each RHA event will be preceded by a Fellows Forum for all who can make it. I therefore look forward to hearing your views at these forums and seeing you at the subsequent events celebrating the very best of New Zealand research, innovation and scholarship.
On behalf of the AEC, myself, and, I hope, the Academy as a whole, I very sincerely thank my predecessor Professor Charlotte Macdonald for her leadership through the turbulence of the last three years, and also Marc Rands who continues as Academy Executive Officer and without whom much less would happen.
Geoff Chase
Chair, Academy Executive Committee