Vavaʻu Academy for Critical Inquiry and Research [VACIAR] was established in Auckland, New Zealand in 2007 as a regional research and publication facility for Tongan scholarship. Its academic imprint has published seven titles on Tongan society and culture. It currently operates an informal centre in Auckland and two in the Kingdom of Tonga – at Nukuʻalofa on Tongatapu and Tefisi on Vavaʻu.
Since 2009, U.S. Peace Corps volunteers have staffed its Tefisi centre, remedially assisting primary and secondary school students. Since 2011, its monthly classical music programme, "Classical Cavalcade", has been broadcast nationally in Tonga on Radio Tonga 1 from April through November.
In May 2013, Dr Hal Levine, veteran anthropologist at New Zealand's Victoria University at Wellington, joined the academy as visiting academic, laying the groundwork for a World Values Survey to be conducted in Tonga in 2015.