Vice-Chancellor's message

The University of Auckland is located in Aotearoa New Zealand, a place of extraordinary beauty and diversity, where Māori are tangata whenua. From here, we reach out to the Pacific, to Asia and the World. Our enduring relationship with tangata whenua is based upon Te Tiriti o Waitangi, an essential part of our distinctiveness, and a key component of our new Vision 2030 and Strategic Plan 2025.

I am pleased to commend to you this University of Auckland Vision and Strategy for the next decade 2021–2030, Taumata Teitei, which can be interpreted from te reo Māori as pursuing excellence, despite uncertainty. It recognises the exciting challenges posed by the concerns of our age and is a contemporary statement of our purpose, vision and values.

Alongside our new Vision and Strategy, we are co-creating a framework titled Waipapa (based upon the Ngāti Whātua Ōrakei gifted name for the University, Waipapa Taumata Rau). A framework that will sustain us beyond this 10-year Strategy, it elucidates ideas important to the University, including the principles of manaakitanga, kaitiakitanga and whanaungatanga. Located within an interactive network of maunga (mountains) redolent of the many mountain peaks of Auckland, this iterative framework will act as a dialogue over successive years, supporting our actions, deliberations and outcomes, so as to benefit our students, staff and key communities.

Our common commitment to ecologically sustainable systems, equitable and just society, well-being for all, and a thriving economy based upon innovation, are therefore to be understood through the lens of this framework.

Taumata Teitei signals a strong commitment to excellence, sustainability, relevance, fairness and positive impact in all we do. It does this for the immediate communities of the University of Auckland, for Aotearoa and the Pacific, as well as the global social and economic systems critical to intergenerational equity across the world. We promote a strategy that emphasises well-being, human value and the preservation and protection of our natural world. In short, our strategy is for the world.

Consequently, we will sharpen our focus, prioritising our education and research efforts to improve insight and understanding of global concerns and opportunities, taking informed and positive action through ethical use of knowledge. We will do this across broad domains – geopolitical; environmental and resources; justice, equality and democracy; health and well-being; technology and digitisation – and, through these efforts, advance understanding of what it is to be human, curious, flawed, ingenious and interconnected.

To realise these aspirations, we favour transdisciplinarity, working collaboratively through our teaching and research, respectful of the complex abilities and needs of the diverse communities that we serve. We co-create and disseminate knowledge within and beyond the academic, which is enabled through strong and meaningful engagement with students, staff and our partners, using open and responsive novel work practices such as design-thinking, codesign and co-production.

Mobilising to achieve our purpose in a world in flux is not without risk. To succeed, we must be a strongly principled and values-led academic community, holding ourselves and our partners to values that support academic freedom, curiosity, research-driven knowledge, sustainability, impact and engagement. Paramount amongst these are the most human of values — openness, tolerance, fairness, trustworthiness and respect for each other and our ideas. Throughout the uncertainty and changes ahead, we will live our values and continue to reflect on them, as we, and our world, change.

The foci proposed in our new strategy will only be possible by working in ways that respectfully challenge old boundaries and assumptions, that require different behaviours. We will be recognised by our explicit collaboration with our students, staff, alumni and partners to understand their needs, aspirations and experiences. This collaboration will inform how we work, and our policies, processes, systems and decision-making.

Importantly, through our lived values we will continue to demonstrate our belief in sustainable, fair and equitable societies, innovation-led economies, and to meeting our responsibilities to Māori, Pacific and students of all socio-economic backgrounds.