Our kaupapa connects to the expertise and purpose of all six Signature Research Areas at the University of Auckland.
Mā Kiwa te moana nui e whakaumu
Blue Pacific Horizons
Historical, ethical, imaginative and intercultural literacy is needed to advance social, economic, environmental, and technological futures in the region. The Lab demonstrates how centring Pacific knowledge systems transforms how we govern, manage, develop, and imagine Pacific futures.
When we genuinely centre Pacific knowledges, histories, and creative practices, what pathways to innovation and flourishing are illuminated?How do new ways of imagining the Pacific generate novel policies, technologies, data, and governance architectures?What opportunities for innovation can be found at the intersection of Pacific and wider concepts, practices, and institutions?
Existing Lab Projects & Collaborations:
Pacific Contributions to Global Health SolidarityAsia-Pacific Global Governance InnovationAsia-Pacific Regional UN-SG Briefing
Mātauranga Tuku iho
Ancestral Futures
Knowledge translation, epistemic justice, stewardship, and the ethics of cross-cultural collaboration and multigenerational responsibility are urgent and critical. The Lab demonstrates how cultural and historical knowledge about multigenerational responsibility and multidimensional time transforms our understanding of what futures are possible and just.
What are the impacts of centring ancestral knowledge as foundational rather than supplementary?How have communities endured in the face of radical change – and what can we learn for the futures we should pursue?How do we build governance, research, and decision-making practices that allow ancestral knowledge and different temporal frameworks to genuinely shape what we pursue and how we steward for futures beyond our own lifetimes?
Existing Lab Projects & Collaborations:
Indigenous Philosophy and Intergenerational Justice, United Nations Environment ProgrammeThe St Andrews Statement on Intergenerational and Cross-Cultural Climate Justice
Hangarau Haputa
Frontier Technologies
Novel technologies will not “work for our communities” without sustained ethical, political, and conceptual scrutiny of what technologies (have, can, and should) do to human agency, community, and socio-environmental relationships. Taking cultural, conceptual, and creative knowledge as epistemically authoritative, the lab reshapes what becomes possible and just in evolving technological futures.
What insights can cross-cultural and multigenerational co-creation generate for the development and deployment of technology?Before deploying technology in communities, what questions should we ask about its effects on human agency and human-nature relationships?When does cultural, conceptual, and creative imagination enable technological leaps?
Existing Lab Projects & Collaborations:
UNDP Human Development Report 2025, A Matter of Choice: People and Possibilities in the Age of AI
Pūngao Toitū
The Energy Movement
Just Transitions are inseparable from questions of intergenerational justice, political economy, and cultural narratives about progress and sacrifice. Energy systems are shaped not only by engineering but by regulatory frameworks, market design, distribution models, and governance structures that embody assumptions about progress, growth, and access. For the Lab, advancing energy futures requires treating cultural knowledge systems as authoritative to how energy is generated, regulated, accessed and experienced.
What stories shape our understanding of energy and progress and whose sacrifices do they conceal?How do we imagine, pursue, and realise energy futures that break cycles of extraction and unequal burden?How do climate-related health burdens translate into economic impacts, and what are the effects across generations?
Existing Lab Projects & Collaborations:
Just Transitions Aotearoa Group. 2023. “A Guide to Just Transitions for Communities in Aotearoa New Zealand,” Motu Economic and Public Policy Research, WellingtonUNDP Human Development Report 2026, Towards Peace with Nature: Nurturing the Foundations of Human Development
Hangarau Hāpai Hauora
Future Health
Health requires appropriate indicators, data, justice, and cultural expertise if solutions are to be genuinely “for all”. The Lab advances health justice by treating cultural knowledge traditions as central to what health innovations are developed, how they are tested, and whose needs they serve.
What would health solutions look like if grounded in the values and expertise of the communities they serve?How do health burdens compound into educational, productivity, and care costs across subsequent generations?What climate-related health burdens are communities facing now, and how are they distributed across generations?
Existing Lab Projects & Collaborations:
Global Health Solidarity ProjectProject Connect: Communities, Climate Change, and Flourishing Futures
Mōhiotanga Tōtōpū
Advancing Trust in Knowledge
Trust requires transparency about how knowledge is produced and validated, recognition of diverse ways of knowing, and mechanisms for genuine dialogue between them. The Lab demonstrates what becomes knowable, actionable, and just when Indigenous and other knowledge traditions are treated as epistemically authoritative grounds for understanding the world and shaping collective decisions and policy.
How are different communities producing reliable knowledge, and what enables diverse knowledge systems to be recognised and integrated?What enables genuine dialogue between researchers, communities, and practitioners with different ways of knowing?How can we communicate in ways that correct misconceptions that prevent collective action and solidarity?
Existing Lab Projects & Collaborations:
Global Health Solidarity ProjectEnabling Diverse Knowledges Workshop Report