Fijian academic, Professor Steven Ratuva has won the prestigious Metge Medal for excellence, New Zealand’s highest academic honour in social science research.
Ratuva has become the first Pacific Islander to win the medal.
The Royal Society of New Zealand which awards medals to New Zealand’s elite scholars cited Professor Ratuva’s research excellence, interdisciplinary leadership and world expertise and standing in his field.
He was also awarded the 2019 Research Medal by the University of Canterbury, the university’s highest academic honour.
As Director of the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies at the University of Canterbury, Ratuva’s scholarship spans the fields of sociology, anthropology, politics, history, cultural studies, post-colonial and development studies.
His research innovation, writings and professional engagements have fostered interdisciplinary and collaborative projects across the globe.
His research is inspired by the desire to create an equal, sustainable and humanity-based world and to give marginalised scholars a voice at every opportunity.
Ratuva, who is from Kadavu leads a number of global, national and inter-university research teams and networks including: a Palgrave project on global ethnicity, the largest ethnicity project in the world; a global project on security for the International Political Science Association; a project on social protection and health (including COVID-19) for the University of Canterbury and the University of Otago; a project on food security and well-being for the University of Canterbury, and an international project on risk and security.
His work on ethnicity and security, in particular, have been recognised globally for its contribution to new knowledge.
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