We were all interested in greater cohesion and collaboration across disciplines and research specialities.  We wanted greater recognition of Māori and Pacific leadership in helping address sustainability challenges. And we could see huge potential to do great things by working more closely together. 

But we couldn’t actually do much without some funding.

In March 2025, the University put out a call for Expressions of Interest for a Sustainability Research Grand Challenge to ‘coordinate and foster interdisciplinary research’ and ‘harness our research and innovation strengths’ to ‘address pressing local and/or global issues and opportunities’. In addition, the successful Grand Challenge would advance the reputation of Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka and take a lead in establishing key strategic partnerships with national and local governments, key community and industry partners, and global universities.

This was a great fit for our aspirations.  After many more meetings and conversations, we put forward our proposal for Te Uru Institute for Sustainability. 

And we were successful!  Te Uru was established on 1 July 2026 and we celebrated our formal launch on 13 October 2026.