2020 Metge Medal: Collaborating for a more equitable world for all

Professor Steven Ratuva has been awarded the Metge Medal by Royal Society Te Apārangi for his interdisciplinary studies that have traversed culture, conflict, security and ethnicity as well as his capacity building and leadership in the social sciences. 

His research is inspired by the desire to create an equal, sustainable and humanity-based world and to give marginalised scholars a voice at every opportunity. 

His scholarship spans the fields of sociology, anthropology, politics, history, cultural studies, post-colonial and development studies. His research innovation, writings and professional engagements have fostered interdisciplinary and collaborative projects across the globe.

Steven, who was born in Fiji, engages in interdisciplinary studies, policy research and community wellbeing and equity projects. He is a global authority on ethnicity, security and affirmative action with proficiency in a range of other areas such as conflict and social protection.

He leads a number of global, national and interuniversity research teams and networks including: a Palgrave project on global ethnicity, the largest ethnicity project in the world; a global project on security for the International Political Science Association; a project on social protection and health (including COVID-19) for the University of Canterbury and the University of Otago; a project on food security and wellbeing for the University of Canterbury; and an international project on COVID-19 and global security.

He has also been an advisor and consultant for a number of international organisations such as UNDP, International Labour Organization, Asian Development Bank, Commonwealth Secretariat, International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance and Pacific Island Forum, amongst others, on a range of issues such as social protection, affirmative action, development, security and governance.

He is also part of a number of international research teams and networks. He is Chair of the International Political Science Association Research Committee on Security, Conflict and Democratization and President of the newly established International Social Science and Humanities Association.

He is actively engaged with Pacific regional organisations and communities in the Pacific islands on development strategies for wellbeing and equity. To boost Pacific research to competitive global standards, he started Pacific Dynamics: Journal of Interdisciplinary Research, now in its fourth year. He also founded and now runs the Global Research and Innovation Hub on the Pacific (GRIPac) at the University of Canterbury.

He recently received research funding from the Marsden Fund, the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade,  and the New Zealand Health Research Council and also won a Fulbright senior fellowship in 2018 which allowed him to collaborate with leading scholars at UCLA, Duke University and Georgetown University on Pacific minorities and affirmative action in the US and New Zealand.

His work on ethnicity and security, in particular, have been recognised globally for its contribution to new knowledge. His recent works on ethnicity provides a new way of framing shifting multiple identities in a globalized world. His work on security also interrogates dominant security discourses from the point of view of marginalised groups around the world. For this, amongst other achievements, he was awarded the University of Canterbury Research Medal in 2019.

Steven is Professor and Director of the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, University of Canterbury.

Metge Medal:
For excellence and building relationships in the social science research community.

Citation:
To Steven Ratuva for his interdisciplinary studies, policy research on security, geopolitics and conflict as well as community wellbeing and equity projects on ethnicity, racism, affirmative action and social protection.