Law, Policy and Government
As New Zealand’s capital city university, Victoria is New Zealand’s leading centre for research in policy, governance and law. Our researchers – in fields as diverse as law, psychology, public policy, criminology and economics – work with each other and with government, NGOs and business groups on legal and governance issues facing New Zealand and the world.
Our law researchers are currently involved in major projects to reform and improve the New Zealand regulatory system, produce a dictionary of legal Māori terms for Western legal concepts and recover lost legal cases from New Zealand’s nineteenth century legal history.
Other researchers work on issues such as climate change, regulatory reform, family conflict, health policy, multiculturalism and social connectedness, government efficiency and productivity, crime and justice, and industrial relations. Our researchers are regularly called on by policymakers and others for research and consultancy services, training, programme development, and policy and legal advice.
Find out more about specific research projects in government, policy and law:
Patients waiting for a kidney transplant depend on dialysis, a less effective and more costly treatment for end-stage renal failure.
Increasing Levels of Live Kidney Transplant in New Zealand
“A kidney transplant from a live donor is the best treatment for people with end-stage renal failure,” says Paula Martin, a public policy PhD student based in the Health Services Research Centre in the School of Government.
“As well as offering patients a better outcome than the alternative, dialysis, a kidney transplant is significantly more cost effective,” she says.
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Māmari Stephens (standing) with, from left to right, Dr Mary Boyce from the University of Hawai’i and Tai Ahu and Dulce Piacentini from the Faculty of Law.
New Dictionary of Legal Māori Terms
A Victoria University team is compiling the first ever dictionary of legal Māori terms.
“The dictionary will assist Māori speakers to practice law, draft agreements, or write, teach and talk about law,” says Māmari Stephens, from Victoria’s Faculty of Law, who is leading the team.
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