Research at Auckland Museum
As New Zealand’s oldest research institution, Auckland Museum has always put research at the heart of its activities and aspirations. Central to our research is our 4.5 million object heritage asset and our diverse and specialised expertise. This globally unique resource enables a research approach that is interdisciplinary, collaborative and connected.
Our research themes align to current societal and environmental issues, and to the strategic direction of Auckland Museum. We aspire to set an international benchmark for indigenous research in museums and best-practice approaches to culturally competent research. Mātauranga Māori, along with iwi partnership and community engagement, is integral to our research.
Our research will be visible and meaningful, creating change and leaving a legacy for future generations.
Auckland Museum is an ideal site for students to gain experience – from undergraduate through to emerging professionals. We are also keen to partner with established researchers and academics to facilitate new knowledge inspired by our globally significant Museum collections
There are a range of opportunities across all Museum Departments and aspects of Museum practice.
Our curatorial and research staff work with our many communities and collaborators to develop and share new knowledge utilising the diverse objects, documents, taonga and scientific specimens at Auckland Museum.
We have six research themes, built on our research strengths, expertise and collections. Each of our research themes is strategically aligned to current societal or environmental issues that are of relevance across Auckland.
Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum has many ongoing projects and streams of work to better serve our communities and the taonga in our care. Find out more about some of our mahi and the intiatives that drives it.
Collections-based research is the link – the transformative process – that interprets our collections for the Museum’s diverse audiences, providing rich content for our exhibitions, digital media and public programmes.
The research outputs produced by our team make a vital contribution to national and international understanding in each of our areas of curatorial expertise. Our research contributions help to build Auckland Museum’s reputation as an institution that undertakes academic research and supports research into its collections for the creation of new knowledge.
Auckland Museum research is published within a wide variety of specialist areas in the form of peer-reviewed articles, blog or topic pages, technical reports, and creative works.
Staff also contribute to and edit the Museum's own publications, Records of the Auckland Museum and the monograph series Bulletins of the Auckland Museum. These scholarly peer-reviewed serials are an important part of the Museum's statutory role to advance and promote cultural and scientific scholarship and research.
Auckland Museum supports external researchers to shine a light on the collections and create new knowledge through original research, by providing scholarships, internships and collection- specific research grants.
Auckland Museum's Collections Online and the Research Library are valuable sources of information for all levels of researchers. We invite new researchers, academics, independent scholars, government research staff, postgraduates, iwi researchers, journalists, designers, writers and artists to pursue their research interests by consulting our collections.