Chief Executive Update
Chief Executive Andrew Cleland reflects on refreshing our Strategic Plan, the key themes for incoming President Wendy Larner's term and programme planning for 2019.
Every three years (corresponding to the tenure of our President) the Society Council refreshes our Strategic Plan. That process has been underway in early 2018 as we prepare for the commencement of the upcoming tenure of Professor Wendy Larner, who will succeed Professor Richard Bedford mid-2018. Key themes for the next three years will include a continued commitment to embracing the full diversity of research and scholarship, and recognising the need to better engage previously under-represented groups, a commitment to embracing mātauranga and Māori research generally, and a commitment to engage researchers at all career stages, with emphasis on the early to mid-career group.
There is also recognition by the Council that the Cook expedition in 1769 was a quest for knowledge, and led, through the first landing, to contact between mātauranga and science as it existed in Europe at the time. Commemoration of the first contact in 2019 provides the opportunity to better understand our evolution as a knowledge-rich society, drawing on all forms of knowledge relevant to this nation and its people. Additionally, 2019 is the centenary of the establishment of the Society’s Fellowship. The Council has decided that next year there will be programmes recognising both milestones. As plans for these are developed we will inform our members and fellows.
Andrew Cleland - Chief Executive Royal Society Te Apārangi
Royal Society Te Apārangi: 17 April