President's Message

It’s been a big month. Last week was the sixth Social Sciences Week, with more than 85 events across the country. I was delighted to be able to launch the program at a breakfast in Parliament House with a number of parliamentarians, Fellows and colleagues from other learned academies present. It was also wonderful that Minister for Youth Dr Anne Aly MP was there to present the inaugural Rechnitz Fund Grants. This year’s recipients are Torres Strait Islander woman Dr Josephine Bourne from the University of Queensland, Gomeroi woman Dr Olivia Evans from the Australian National University, and Worimi man Dr Jacob Prehn from the University of Tasmania.

I was also lucky to be at the ‘Great Debate’ between Fellows David Rowe and the Hon Andrew Leigh MP on the topic Does sport unite us or divide us? In a closely fought contest the winner, by audience vote, was David Rowe on the ‘divide us’ side, but it felt like the real winner was the social sciences with civilised discussion and the exchange of ideas persuading the audience.

If you’re not already a listener, I highly recommend the latest Seriously Social podcast on Trust with Fellow Nicole Gillespie. Its release in the last few weeks is particularly timely given recent events with PwC and, to a lesser extent with Qantas.

Finally, tickets are on sale for our Annual Symposium on Friday 24 November in Canberra. In what is always the highlight of my academic year, we will have the New Fellows presentation on Thursday 23 November. That will be followed by the Cunningham Lecture with Academy Fellow, Professor Susan Danby. The program at a glance is available here. I hope to see many of you there for what should be a great set of events.

Richard Holden

President

That's a wrap: #SSW2023

Events ranged from navigating cancel culture to addressing sexism in universities and a TikTok competition for high school students, Social Sciences Week 2023 (SSW2023) was bigger and better than ever. Participants, presenters and panellists came together online and in almost every capital city and many regional locations for compelling dialogues about the Voice Referendum, climate change, mental health, AI, adventure therapy and more.

More than 85 events were registered on the Academy’s SSW2023 site and others joined the celebrations resulting in over 100 events around the country. RMIT University, as a Social Sciences Week partner hosted a staggering 18 events for SSW2023 and attended Parliament House in Canberra for the launch function.

The Academy hosted several events this year kicking off with a Parliamentary breakfast on Monday 4 September that brought researchers and parliamentarians together to hear from the Parliamentary Friends of Social Sciences and the three First Nations recipients of the Academy’s Rechnitz Fund. The Great Debate followed on Tuesday 5 September with sport dividing us and the social sciences winning on the day! Congratulations Fellow David Rowe and points to Fellow Andrew Leigh MP for being such a good sport. Later in the week, Professor Dan Woodman and Fellow Lisa Given entertained and informed audiences at live improv comedy with Peer Revue in Melbourne. 

Thanks to all our partner universities, Professor Dan Woodman, sponsor Synergy Group and the Australian Research Council for their enthusiastic support of SSW2023.

Among other fascinating SSW events were the University of Newcastle’s Youth Studies Centre series on FinTech, the University of Wollongong’s expert panel on literacy-rich and safe technology scenarios for children, and a virtual panel hosted by the Australian Sociological Association exploring schools making room for social science and how research can benefit schools.

A forum at the University of Adelaide fused SSW themes with Child Protection Week, the University of Queensland debated whether ‘Humans flourish with Artificial Intelligence’ while James Cook University threw open its virtual and physical doors for a Year 9 Workshop on Future thinking.

University of Tasmania researchers and students took social sciences to State parliament while Dr Sean Turnell delivered a lecture about his imprisonment and survival in Myanmar. In WA Curtin University gave a WA Migration Update and Academy Fellows held a Making change happen event at the State library.

SSW saw our largest audiences ever for the Academy’s Paul Bourke lecture series as hundreds of people attended in-person and online public lectures presented by the Academy’s 2022 Paul Bourke Award winners. In Melbourne Associate Professor Gemma Sharp (Monash University) presented It's time for change—new perspectives on body image and in Sydney Dr Sophie Webber (The University of Sydney) presented Climate Finance: taking a position on climate futures and Dr Harry Hobbs (University of Technology Sydney) presented Treaty! Promise, potential and pitfalls. 

Several SSW2023 events were recorded. Stay tuned for our Social Sciences Week On Demand page coming soon. And sign up to our newsletter to start planning for SSW2024: 2-8 September!

Policy updates

Academy submission: Better and fairer education

Find the Academy’s submission to the Review to Inform a Better and Fairer Education System here. The Academy strongly supports the review as a timely opportunity to identify reforms needed to achieve national aspirations set out in the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration and its commitment to meeting Sustainable Development Goal 4: Quality Education.

ARC Act: no veto on research

The Australian Government has agreed in principle, to all 10 recommendations of the Review of the Australian Research Council Act 2001 (ARC Review), including a commitment to remove the process of Ministerial review of individual grants. This is consistent with the Academy’s recommendations to the inquiry and hearing in late 2021. Read the Minister's response for more information. 

Strong community interest: Academy Decadal Plan

Last month CEO Chris Hatherly presented an outline of the Academy’s forthcoming Decadal Plan for social science research infrastructure to an audience of social policy and researcher leaders at the Data for Policy Summit in Canberra. We received over 20 submissions from government, university research, and research infrastructure leading organisations across Australia, to the Decadal Plan’s Discussion Paper. More than 60 experts have signed-up to contribute via the Expert Working Group. Find details here.

Welcome to our new policy intern

Cindy Bin Tahal joins the Academy team as our new policy intern. Cindy is a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland researching the perceptions and enactment of international mindedness by teachers and school leaders. Cindy has worked in various education settings both nationally and internationally, having just returned from nine years leading a company school in Brunei, Southeast Asia.

In other Queensland events, six Academy Fellows were among more than 180 human rights and legal experts, social justice organisations and First Nations community groups to sign an open letter condemning Queensland Government’s overriding of state Human Rights legislation, to lock children in the state’s police watch houses indefinitely. Read more here.

2023 Keith Hancock Lecture

Join us on 12 October for the Academy’s annual Keith Hancock lecture by leading economist Emeritus Professor Alison Booth. Her talk will be on Gender Gaps: Causes and Origins. 5:30pm 12 October ANU Research School of Social Sciences (RSSS). Free tickets and more information are available on the event page.

Congratulations

Among the $86 million in grants for early career researchers announced by the Australian Research Council (ARC) last week is a grant to Dr Harry Hobbs, the Academy’s 2022 Paul Bourke Award Winner, to explore the legal implications of treaty making. Find all the grant details for ARC’s Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) here.

International

Harvard chair: Last weeks

Applications for Harvard University’s Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser Chair in Australia Studies close 30 September. For more information on the Chair and the Harvard Committee on Australian Studies visit the website. Any questions? Email Johannah Park (jkpark@fas.harvard.edu) or go straight to the portal to apply.

Academy international grants now open: France and China

The Academy's long-standing International grants programs with France and China are now open for applications.

The Australia-China Joint Action Program offers grants of $7,000 AUD and ¥35,000 RMB while grants of up to $5000 are available for collaborations between Australian and French social scientists. 

Be part of this exciting opportunity to foster cross-border partnerships and advance social science research on a global scale. Learn more about the Academy’s International Grants Program via our website.  Applications close for each grant on 1 November 2023. 

National research priorities: have your say

Join the conversation on Australia’s draft National Science and Research Priorities. Coordinated by the Office of the Chief Scientist, this is a key pathway to influence future government investment. Please take a moment to complete the survey and have your say by 29 September here.

Seeking views on multicultural research priorities

Australia’s Multicultural Framework is being reviewed, and Fellow Andrew Jakubowicz has been engaged by the panel to advise on research opportunities and priorities for inclusion in the Framework. Fellows and others are invited to comment on multicultural policy, migration, interculturalism, community relations and related issues via a short anonymous survey. Please find the survey here and submit before 30 September.

Get your EMCR in SHAPE

Have you signed up for the SHAPE Futures network? Keep in touch with events, research and opportunities for early career and mid-career researchers and academics by becoming a member. Save the date now for SHAPE Future’s conference—15 November in Melbourne. More details soon or when you sign up!

Read, Watch, Listen, Attend

Read

Fellow Bronwyn Fredericks’ timely paper ‘Indigenous recognition and constitutional reform in Australia: The activism of 1967 and aspirations of 2023’ in a Special Edition of the Journal of Australian Indigenous IssuesVolume 26, Issue 1-2. Explore forces shaping the last election with Watershed: The 2022 Australian Federal Election, a ground-up analysis by leading scholars that sprang from an Academy-sponsored election workshop held at the Museum of Australian Democracy. In Troubled Minds: Understanding and treating mental illness find an essential and authoritative guide by Fellows Sidney Bloch and Nick Haslam, who between them have nearly a century of teaching, clinical experience and academic achievement. Or catch up on state-of-the-art and student-‑centred approaches in Technologies for children by Fellow Marilyn Fleer.

Read Academy CEO Chris Hatherly’s post on a shift in perspective and voting ‘Yes’ on referendum day. Plus, Chief Scientist Cathy Foley, examines the difference between questioning and distrust in science and research in this article: Trust in Science.

Watch

The Fay Gale lecture 2023 presented by Professor Cordelia Fine—Battle of the Sex Differences: Where to begin?— at the University of Adelaide is available online. The lecture is named for the first female President of the Academy the late Professor Gwendoline Fay Gale, an eminent human geographer distinguished in Indigenous studies and juvenile justice.

And you can watch 2022 Paul Bourke Award Winner Gemma Sharp’s public lecture here.

Listen

In a vital year for the Australian Constitution a new podcast series—It's not just the vibe, it's the CONSTITUTION—explores the Australian constitution and its context to help Australians decide on the 2023 Referendum. Created by Fellow Kim Rubenstein and ANU colleague James Blackwell (James also features in Seriously Social’s episode on Micronations) find it here. Adults need to play too—that’s the message of a recent episode of Monash University’s What Happens Next? featuring Academy Fellow Marilyn Fleer. Listen here.

Seriously Social’s latest episode Trust unveiled: Not all apologies are equal has just launched and it’s seriously good! Listen to Academy Fellow Nicole Gillespie discuss how organisations can lose our trust and regain it. Find the latest and all your Seriously Social podcasts here.

Attend

Courageous conversations

An inspiring two-day Symposium—Indigenous Studies and Courageous Conversations—to assess and debate what constitutes Indigenous Studies today and how First Nations’ perspectives are redefining the Australian Humanities. A collaboration of The University of Queensland and The Australian Academy of the Humanities featuring Academy of Social Sciences Fellows Tim Rowse and Gillian Cowlishaw and other world-leading Indigenous Studies scholars examine the discipline's recent pasts, transformative practices, and potential futures. Register by Monday 18 September 2023.

Sign up for the<> DASSH conference, Annual Deans’ Gathering and DASSH Annual General Meeting 27-29 September, Murdoch University Perth. The conference program is available here and more information is available at DASSH's newly launched website or register here.

2023 Annual Events

You can now register to attend the Academy's upcoming annual events, including the New Fellows Presentations, Cunningham Lecture, Annual Dinner, and Symposium. Get in quick to take advantage of early bird pricing! We will send out information for Fellows regarding accommodation options and annual meetings soon.

Vale

Emeritus Professor Gus Sinclair
In July Fellow William ‘Gus’ Sinclair sadly passed away. Loved by many and engaged in a lifelong ‘intellectual pursuit of economics’ you can find an obituary here and a link to his page on Academy site here.

Emerita Professor Ann Harding

Earlier this year we noted the passing of Academy Fellow Ann Harding. Now colleagues and friends of Ann are warmly invited to join a celebration of her life and legacy at the University of Canberra’s Ann Harding Conference Centre, 2:00pm Wednesday 20 September 2023. Find details and RSVP at this link.

The Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia.

We acknowledge and pay our respects to the traditional owners of the land on which our national office is located, the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples, and

to their elders past, present and future.