A university professor believes the Government should be allocating about $200 million a year towards Maori research.
In this year's Budget, the Government has set aside $5 million each year from 2016 for a new Maori centre.
But an Associate Professor at Waikato University, Leonie Pihama, says that is not enough.
As an example, she believes Maori research should receive more from the Government's national science fund. She says if the putea (fund) sits at $1 billion, then tangata whenua should get about $200 million of that.
Associate Professor Pihama says another example is Ministry of Justice research.
She says if Maori made up 60 to 70 percent of the prison population, then 60 to 70 percent of funding should be allocated to Maori researchers to address the issue.
The Tertiary Education Commission says the Crown allocates about $275 million to support performance based research and a significant amount of that is given to Maori research and Maori researchers.