Mātai Medical Research Institute (Mātai)

Mātai’s research is working to advance our understanding of the brain, heart, and body to deliver health, social, and economic benefits regionally and globally.

A core focus for Matai is research into concussion/mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) and cardiovascular research, alongside projects across a range of issues that impact the well-being of Tairāwhiti.

To support this important research, in 2019 Mātai secured a $6 million grant from Kānoa – RDU’s Provincial Growth Fund (PGF), to purchase a state of the art, 3 Tesla (3T) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner.

Mātai’s strong performance has attracted significant interest from New Zealand’s wider research community as well as international research entities. This has resulted in numerous additional research projects and programmes collaborating with Mātai, including drug addiction, prostate cancer, and ADHD.

In 2022, Kānoa – RDU awarded Mātai a further $1.5 million grant and $1.5 million loan through the Regional Strategic Partnership Fund to help co-fund the expansion of Mātai Medical Research Institute.

As of September 2022, there are a total of 55 people working on the project including 28 highly skilled people who are employed directly by Mātai. These include physicists, applied mathematicians, engineers, computer scientists and neuroscientists.

Recently, Kānoa – RDU funded operations supported Mātai to run a summer intern program for 16 students over a 10-week period.