| EVAN MIYAKI, Ulana ‘Ike Center of Excellence, Hawai’i Sea Grant College Program, University of Hawai’i Mānoa

| KATY DELAFORGE HINTZEN, Ulana ‘Ike Center of Excellence, Hawai’i Sea Grant College Program, University of Hawai’i Mānoa

| AARIN GROSS, Conservation International Hawai’i

| ULU CHING, Conservation International Hawai’i

| ROSANNA ‘ANOLANI ALEGADO, Ulana ‘Ike Center of Excellence, Hawai’i Sea Grant College Program, Department of Oceanography, University of Hawai’i Mānoa

The University of Hawaiʻi (UH) Mānoa holds a unique position as one of a handful of Indigenous-serving research-intensive institutions in the United States and holds significant influence and responsibility in shaping the data governance practices employed in research projects across Hawaiʻi. Since the 1980s, contentious issues relating to genetic manipulation and commercialization of Hāloa have resulted in community backlash against UH and calls by the state legislature for a taskforce to address Native Hawaiian intellectual property rights. Yet there has been a dearth of planning or action on Indigenous data sovereignty at UH on the system-wide scale. Indeed, even as UH emphasizes a commitment to be a “Hawaiian place of learning” institutional capacity to navigate issues of Indigenous knowledge sovereignty within research and education remain extremely limited.

Hawaiʻi Sea Grantʻs Ulana ʻIke Center of Excellence partnered with Conservation International Hawaiʻi to conduct a landscape analysis of intellectual property law and policy across international, national, and state scales, Indigenous rights as they intersect with intellectual property, and how tensions between Western conceptions of intellectual property law and Hawaiian knowledge and practice have arisen. In consultation with UH faculty and community partners, we then developed templates and example language and clauses that can inform future agreements surrounding intellectual property between research institutions and Indigenous knowledge holders. Insights on endeavors to address Indigenous data sovereignty issues from a bottom-up approach vs institutional level will be discussed.