People skills and Vision Mātauranga

Developing people skills is crucial to fulfil the commitment to Vision Mātauranga.

Vision Mātauranga is a policy that prioritises the science and innovation potential of Māori knowledge, people, and resources. This policy has been embedded across all priority investment areas in Aotearoa—New Zealand, which includes the eleven National Science Challenges.

The Challenge known as Science for Technological Innovation (SfTI) was committed to fulfilling the Vision Mātauranga policy by uniting mātauranga Māori and Western science to explore new and exciting opportunities to build a vibrant and prosperous technology-driven economy.

So, the researchers on the Building New Zealand’s Innovation Capacity (BNZIC) project recognised that we needed to generate a better understanding of how collaborative innovation—or ‘open innovation’—happens, particularly if SfTI was to fulfil its commitment to Vision Mātauranga.

Increase absorptive capacity for better engagement

To understand these challenges, our researchers considered the concept of absorptive capacity. Absorptive capacity is an area of research that is interested in an organisation’s ability to recognise the value of new and external information, integrate it, and commercialise it.

Interestingly, research on absorptive capacity has primarily focused on an organisation’s ability to learn from external knowledge sources. They discovered that zooming in to the micro level and thinking about the absorptive capacity of individual researchers provided some new insights.

The concept of absorptive capacity is related to open innovation and more specifically SfTI’s commitment to Vision Mātauranga because of the need for science researchers to engage with Māori stakeholders. The scientists need to be able to engage with Māori stakeholders and value new and external information like mātauranga Māori so that they can integrate it into their research.

Achieve this by developing human and relational skills

Our researchers considered three different dimensions of science researchers' capacity. These include technical capacity, human capacity, and relational capacity. Scientists can increase their absorptive capacity by developing their human and relational skills.

Technical capacity has traditionally played a significant role in collaborative projects. However, SfTI proposed that human and relational capacity should be prioritised to increase the absorptive capacity of science researchers. These skills focus on the people skills and abilities that allow us to influence, collaborate, and communicate with others within and across disciplines and sectors.

Human and relational capacity development opportunities need to include opportunities for science researchers to develop their understanding of culturally appropriate ways of collaborating with Māori stakeholders. This includes training in Tikanga (the correct way of doing things) and kaupapa Māori (Māori principles and understandings).

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