| Full Name: | Resilience to Nature's Challenges National Science Challenge |
| Established: | 2015 |
| Type: | Research programme |
| Location Country: | New Zealand |
| Leader Title: | Director |
| Leader Name: | Richard Smith |
| Budget: | $59.4 m NZD |
| Funding: | MBIE |
Resilience to Nature's Challenges (mi|Kia manawaroa – Ngā Ākina o Te Ao Tūroa) was one of New Zealand's eleven collaborative research programmes known as National Science Challenges. Running from 2015 to 2024, the focus of Resilience to Nature's Challenges (RNC) research was enhancing New Zealand's resilience to natural hazards such as sea level rise, climate change, wildfire, and volcanoes.
The New Zealand Government agreed in August 2012 to fund National Science Challenges: large multi-year collaborative research programmes that would address important issues in New Zealand's future. The funding criteria were set out in January 2014, with proposals assessed by a Science Board within the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment (MBIE).[1] After a planning phase in 2014, MBIE approved the Crown Research Institute GNS Science as a host for the project. RNC was launched in March 2015 by Minister for Science and Innovation Steven Joyce, with interim Director Shane Cronin. The Māori name of Resilience to Nature's Challenges translates as Maori: Kia manawaroa (resilience) Maori: Ngā āki (-na) (challenges) Maori: [o Te] Ao Tūroa (of the enduring world).[2]
RNC was hosted by GNS Science, with twelve other New Zealand research partners: BRANZ, Opus International, Resilient Organisations Ltd, Market Economics Ltd, the University of Auckland, University of Canterbury, University of Otago, Massey University, Lincoln University, Victoria University of Wellington, Scion, and NIWA.[3] The Challenge involved 90 researchers and had an initial four-year allocation of $19.6 million.
RNC was set up around two major themes: Understanding Hazard and Risk (with research programmes on coastal hazards, volcanoes, weather and wildfires, and earthquakes and tsunamis), and Accelerating Resilience (incorporating research on both rural and urban communities, built environments, and Whanake te Kura i Tawhiti Nui—applying traditional Māori knowledge to hazard resilience). In December 2018 two research areas were added: multihazard risks, and resilience in practice.[4]