Nau mai ki Rangahau Aranga!

Abstract

Welcome to AUT's Graduate Review Rangahau Aranga Editorial TeamIt is with profound pride and genuine excitement that we welcome you to the inaugural issue of Rangahau Aranga, Auckland University of Technology's first postgraduate student-run, peerreviewed open access journal. This initiative has come about through a combination of inspiration, perseverance, and an overwhelming desire to create a safe, dynamic and open platform for academic expression at Te Wānanga Aronui o Tāmaki Makaurau.Rangahau Aranga will run a rolling publication schedule, which means this first volume will incorporate all submissions accepted for publication by the editors until submissions close towards the end of 2022. Being multi-disciplinary, each volume will be made up of a diverse range of subjects presented in a variety of formats; we invite you to submit something of your own, be it commentary or review, creative work, short -or long -form research article. Help to shape the publication in a way which is reflective of, and which celebrates, the richness and diversity of postgraduate scholarship alive and growing within our institution.We are launching this issue with the publication of a set of abstracts from AUT's 2021 Postgraduate Research Symposium. Each of these abstract authors gave an oral or poster presentation at the Symposium, which was held online for the first time ever due to COVID-19.These authors capably communicated their research in a time of great challenges. Their abstracts as collected here represent not only the incredible breadth of postgraduate research at AUT, but also the resilience of our postgraduate students, who have persevered despite immense disruptions to their research plans. Some have not been able to collect data; others have had to change topics completely. Some are not even in the same country as their supervisors. And yet, this cohort of authors has continued the urgent work of performing and communicating their research at a time when research has never been more sorely needed. We are proud to launch Rangahau Aranga by celebrating the work (and perseverance) of these authors, and the stunning variety of research they conduct here at AUT.