Tackling systemic racism in academic promotion processes

In this situation report, we discuss ways to address current promotional processes that discriminate against Māori and Pacific academics in New Zealand universities. This report follows on from a paper that we published in 2020 showing that Māori and Pacific academics, compared with non-Māori non-Pacific male academics, were significantly less likely to be promoted to the professoriate (associate professor, professor) and earn less, over a 15-year period. These gaps are not explained by research performance (measured by Performance Based Research Fund scores), age or field (e.g., science). We found that current promotion processes will not close the gap and that system-wide change is required. This report identifies ways to tackle this issue in existing promotion processes.