About Te Pūnaha Matatini

We build community across disciplines to solve complex problems.

Te Pūnaha Matatini – the meeting place of many faces – is the Aotearoa New Zealand Centre of Research Excellence for complex systems. We are funded by the Tertiary Education Commission and hosted by the University of Auckland. We bring together researchers from tertiary institutions, government institutes, private sector organisations and marae communities from throughout Aotearoa New Zealand.

We apply inter- and transdisciplinary approaches to address the most complex and critical issues of our time.

Our strategy is to transform the research system in Aotearoa New Zealand by embedding a strong foundation of values that permeates the work that we do on complex systems. We train ethical, collaborative researchers who work with complex data across diverse sectors.

Te Pūnaha Matatini provides a safe place for researchers to grow and develop.

Complexity science enables new ways of seeing and understanding the world.

Kia mau ki tēnā
Kia mau ki te kawau mārō
Whanake ake! Whanake ake!

Stick to that, the straight-flying cormorant!

– Maniapoto

When birds flock for flight, they move from an individual state to a highly ordered structure that enables them to move together, aiding their collective journey. The kawau, or shag, extends its neck as it prepares to dive. Maniapoto’s military strategy — te kawau mārō — is based on coordinated collective action that punches through existing barriers to create beneficial new outcomes.

In reducing the world to its constituent parts, the traditional frameworks of our universities and national research institutes fail to describe how people, the economy, and the environment can, do and must relate to each other. The key features of complexity science — connections, feedback, attractors, intervention points, critical transitions, and emergence — all offer new, innovative ways of tackling societal problems.

The flight of the kawau reveals how seeing and understanding the structures behind phenomena can bring unexpected insights.

Ko tā mātou he whakatupu hapori i ngā pekanga mātauranga hei rongoā i ngā raru matatini.

Ko Te Pūnaha Matatini, arā, ko te kāpunipunitanga o ngā tini mata – ko te whare o te rangahau kounga o Aotearoa mō ngā pūnaha matatini. He mea tautoko mātou, ā-pūtea nei, e Te Amorangi Mātauranga Matua, he mea whakaruruhau anō hoki e Waipapa Taumata Rau. Ko tā mātou he whakakotahi mai i ngā kairangahau nō ngā whare wānanga, nō ngā tari kāwanatanga, nō ngā whakahaere nō te rāngai tūmataiti, nō ngā hapori nō ngā marae puta noa i Aotearoa anō hoki.

Ka whāia e mātou ngā ara mahi ngātahi, whakawhitiwhiti anō hoki i waenga i ngā pekanga mātauranga, kia aro atu ai ki ngā take matatini katoa, ki ngā take whai tikanga katoa hoki o te wā.

Ko tā mātou rautaki ko te panoni i te pūnaha rangahau i Aotearoa mā te whakaū i ētahi uaratanga pakari hei tūāpapa mō ā mātou mahi e hāngai ana ki ngā pūnaha matatini. Ka whakangungua e mātou he kairangahau matatika, e waia ana ki te mahi tahi, ka mahi hoki ki ngā momo raraunga matatini puta noa i ngā rāngai kanorau.

Ko tā Te Pūnaha Matatini he whakarite kāinga haumaru e whanake ai a ngāi kairangahau.

Mā te rangahau matatini e hua ai he tirohanga hou, he māramatanga hou anō ki te ao.

Kia mau ki tēnā
Kia mau ki te kawau mārō
Whanake ake! Whanake ake!

– Maniapoto

Ka apū haere ana te rere a te manu, ka huri te āhua o te whakarite – nāwai i takitahi te āhua, ka kuhu kē ki tētahi rāngai kua āta whakaraupapatia, e tapatahi ai te rere, e ngāwari ake anō ai te haere ngātahi. Ka whātaitai te kawau, nōna e whakarite ana ki te ruku. Hei tūāpapa mō te rautaki pakanga a Maniapoto ko te koke ngātahi kia turakina ai ngā tauārai, e puta ai ko ētahi painga hou e whaihua ana.

I te āhua o te āta wāwāhitia o te ao hei wāhi motuhake, kāore e oti i ngā anga whakahaere auraki o ō tātou whare wānanga me ngā whare rangahau ā-motu te āta whakaahua i te āhua e honohono nei te tangata, te ōhanga me te taiao ki a rātou anō, me te tika o te pērā. Ko ngā āhuatanga matua o te pūtaiao matatini – arā, ko ngā hononga, ngā whakahokinga, ngā wāhi whārite, ngā wāhi panoni, ngā whakawhitinga whai tikanga nui, me te mahi ngātahi – hei huarahi hou, hei huarahi auaha anō hei rongoā i ngā raru ā-pāpori.

Ko tā te rere a te kawau e whakatauira mai ana, mā te aro, mā te whai māramatanga anō ki te hanga o tētahi momo āhuatanga, e kitea ai pea he māramatanga kāore i whakapaetia.