The Norway-Pacific Ocean-Climate Scholarship Programme (N-POC) at The University of the South Pacific (USP) successfully organised a hybrid “Qualitative Data Analysis Workshop” under its Research Support Series on 13 June 2025.
The workshop was facilitated by Dr Rosiana Lagi, Deputy Head (Learning, Teaching and Quality) of the School of Pacific Arts, Communication and Education (SPACE) at USP.
It focused on the fundamentals of qualitative data analysis, with a particular emphasis on coding techniques and structuring research data.
Participants included N-POC PhD scholars, scholars from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), Project Halophyte, and the U.S.-Pacific Resilience and Adaptation Fellowship Program.
The workshop fostered an interactive and collaborative environment, encouraging deep discussions on analytical methods and the use of culturally relevant research frameworks.
Dr Lagi shared valuable insights from her own academic and professional experience, highlighting the importance of using indigenous research approaches.
“From my experience, I use a lot of indigenous research frameworks because they are more relevant for our people,” she said. “One common method is Talanoa, but in practice, we’ve expanded this to VeiTalanoa—a more collective form of conversation where multiple people are involved in validating each other’s information.”
Participants appreciated the practical nature of the session, especially the hands-on guidance in organising data. Alice Rore, an N-POC PhD scholar, shared, “I found it really useful seeing how to organise my data efficiently.”
She expressed her gratitude to N-POC and Dr Lagi, adding, that her data would now be stored on one consistent database.
This workshop is part of N-POC’s ongoing commitment to enhancing research excellence and capacity-building among Pacific scholars.
The Norway-Pacific Ocean-Climate Scholarship Programme (N-POC) is an ambitious research and PhD training partnership between the University of Bergen in Norway and USP.
It is funded for the period 2021–2026 by Norway’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad).
The programme comprises up to 22 fully funded PhD scholarships at the USP within ocean and climate research, ranging from the natural sciences to law, social sciences and humanities.
