Got an idea for a research project?

The Te Ao Mārama team within Fire and Emergency is here to help with potential research projects and the funding of them.

As you think about how your team will deliver on our organisational strategic priorities, Te Ao Mārama encourages you to consider how research can support your decision making.

The team can support you to find information on your topic that might already exist, help develop research questions and a funding proposal. The team typically pulls on external experts to undertake the research.

Research ensures we are a strategic, intelligence-led and evidence-based organisation, and can help you to succeed in meeting performance expectations for your work programmes. The process run by the Te Ao Mārama team is designed to ensure that research investments will deliver the desired benefits and address knowledge gaps.

We are looking towards 2021 funding to start in July and it can take several months to develop the project, find a researcher, and contract. If you think research will benefit your programme of work, then get in touch with the team today.

The research proposal form can be found here(external link). You can also contact the Te Ao Mārama team for any help or information on research@fireandemergency.nz.

The team name Te Ao Mārama was given to the team in consultation with National Manager Kaupapa Māori.

It comes from a Māori term commonly delivered in oratory, “Ki te wheiao, ki te ao mārama” and its origin is in the Māori creation story involving the separation of Ranginui (sky father) and Papatūānuku (earth mother). This allowed their children to be exposed to sunlight and thus creating the world as we know it.  Today, “ki te wheiao ki te ao mārama” refers to the transition from darkness into light, from a place of uncertainty to certainty, from uninformed/misinformed to informed.