2022-08-162022-08-16Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, DOI: 10.1080/03036758.2022.20932280303-67581175-8899https://hdl.handle.net/10292/15384As Pacific early career researchers (ECRs), relational interconnections and engagement are at the heart of our collective responsibilities to each other. Although we share a mutual responsibility to our research communities (in academia and industry), each Pacific ECR is unique in our field of research and genealogical connections to the Pacific. This paper engages the Indigenous story work methodology to capture, negotiate, and make meaningful links between our research experiences and relational excellence. This methodological approach reveals thematic elements of respect, responsibility, reciprocity, reverence, holism, interrelatedness, and synergy are woven throughout the paper to highlight our collective va-relationality and potential as ECRs. Our collaborative approach to defining and engaging with Pacific research creates new and innovative possibilities for Indigenous and Pacific research excellence.© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.Relational excellence; Indigenous story work; va relationality; Collective responsibility; DecolonialityJournal ArticleOpenAccess10.1080/03036758.2022.2093228