Distinguished ProfessorSteven Ratuva

Distinguished Professor Steven Ratuva, an award-winning political sociologist and global interdisciplinary scholar, is Pro-Vice Chancellor Pacific and Director of the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies. He was awarded the 2020 Metge Medal by the Royal Society of New Zealand -Te Apārangi, a prestigious award in social science research excellence. He was also co-winner of the 2019 University of Canterbury research medal, the university’s highest academic honour as well as the university's Sustainability Research Award. He is also recipient of a number of research grants by Marsden, NZ Health Research Council, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and others, totalling a few million dollars. 

He was a recipient of a Fulbright Senior Fellowship and was Fulbright professor at the University of California (LA), Duke University and Georgetown University in 2018. He is Chair of the International Political Science Association Research Committee on Climate Security and Planetary Politics and former Chair of the Security, Conflict and Democratization Research Committee. He is former President of the Pacific Islands Political Studies Association. He has transdisciplinary across sociology, anthropology, political science, development studies, economics, philosophy and history. He was appointed by the Secretary General of the UN  to help write the 2027 Global Sustainable Development Report and provide the SDG pathway for 2030 and beyong. With a PhD from the Institute of Development Studies (University of Sussex), he has published widely on a range of issues Pacific societies and culture, indigenous knowledge, development, conflict, peace, political change, coups, memory activism, social solidarity economy, social protection, elections, ethnicity, security, military, affirmative action, COVID-19, social indexes, indigenous knowledge, climate security and nationalism. He has led a number of international research teams on global security, climate change, ethnicity and political governance. He led a team of about 200 international scholars to put together the largest ands most comprehensive work on ethnicity ever. The 3 volume, 2,000 plus pages work was published by Palgrave Springer.