Ngā Puanga Pūtaiao Fellowships for Māori and Pacific STEM researchers

The Government is funding a new short-term Fellowships opportunity, the Ngā Puanga Pūtaiao Fellowships. These Fellowships will help to build and strengthen a diverse Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) research workforce by investing in talented early- and mid-career Māori and Pacific researchers.

A total of $19.3 million has been allocated for the Ngā Puanga Pūtaiao Fellowships with $14.8 million attributed to Māori researchers and $4.5 million attributed to Pacific researchers. Two types of Fellowship will be awarded:

• early-career Fellowships (0-6 years post-PhD research experience)
• mid-career Fellowships (7-15 years post-PhD research experience)

Both Fellowship types will have a four-year term.

Fellowships will be awarded with an early:mid-career stage ratio of 2:1 where practicable. It is intended the scheme operation will invest in at least 20 Fellows.

Ngā Puanga Pūtaiao refers to the early- and mid-career stage of scientific (Pūtaiao) researchers, when researchers are blooming and demonstrating their talent and potential (Puanga). At the same time, this career stage can be fragile and precarious. The Ngā Puanga Pūtaiao Fellowships will support researchers to be successful and progress to develop the new seeds for the next generation of STEM researchers.

Ngā Puanga Pūtaiao Fellowships are to be administered by the Royal Society Te Apārangi on behalf of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

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