President's Message

These next months are among the busiest in the academic year and contain some of the Academy’s most important events and announcements. The Annual Symposium is on Friday 24 November in Canberra, and I urge you to take advantage of Early Bird registration (extended by one week until Friday 13 October). The Symposium is part of a series of events that bring together Fellows, researchers and policy makers. For collegiate warmth and intellectual spark it is hard to beat the New Fellows presentations on Thursday 23 November, followed by the Cunningham Lecture presented by Academy Fellow, Professor Susan Danby. I hope to see you among those Fellows gathering from across Australia to exchange ideas, renew friendships and forge new ones.

Later this month the Academy will be announcing the 2023 Paul Bourke Awards and the successful applicants for the Academy’s Workshops Program grants. You can keep abreast of developments by visiting our website or following the Academy’s social media channels on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

As the Voice referendum draws closer, I recommend an article in the prestigious international journal The Lancet by Fellows Ian Anderson, Tom Calma and Marcia Langton on the impacts of the referendum process on First Nations peoples. Whatever the result, the Academy commits to contributing to a reconciled nation.

The Academy’s latest Seriously Social podcast—Who does Australia lock up?—sheds light on early disadvantage through the work of Fellow Eileen Baldry. It also featues Justen Thomas, a guest whose young life was marked by so many of the factors that Professor Baldry’s research predicts make young people vulnerable to ongoing incarceration. Without a voice or someone in his corner as a young Aboriginal child and teenager, Justen, now in his forties, works for youth justice especially for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people. If you’re not already a listener, I highly recommend this episode and Seriously Social’s back catalogue, to explore the social sciences.

The Seriously Social podcast is coming to an end, with the final episode going to air next month. The Academy is proud of the series, and I thank all our guests, our audience and the team for supporting the podcast over six series.

Richard Holden

President

Join us: Academy of the Social Sciences 2023 Annual Symposium

Gather with your peers at this thought-provoking event and be part of shaping a better future.

Digital Society: Social science perspectives for a better future—the Academy’s Annual Symposium on Friday 24 November 2023 in Canberra—explores critical issues in our current and future digital world.

Drawing on experts from diverse social science fields, this one-day program offers conversations, panels and lessons from past experiences applied to today’s technology and AI context. Tackling crucial social and policy questions on digital inclusion, accessibility, equity, and risks of a global digital society, add your thinking to consideration of future opportunities, challenges and risks we face as the human and the digital integrate.

See details for the Symposium, New Fellows presentation and the Cunningham lecture here.

Academy's Reconciliation journey

The Academy is proud to be one of the 150+ Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) partner organisations that have signed a statement of support for a Voice to Parliament and a 'Yes' vote in the Referendum. Find out more at about our RAP here and read the Academy's Voice statement here. 

Join our RAP Working Group

As the Academy moves towards our next Innovate Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) we are looking for two Academy Fellows to join the RAP Working Group. This group is a team of dedicated staff, Fellows and Aboriginal advisors, who come together to improve reconciliation outcomes in the Academy and social sciences more broadly. The group meets every quarter to implement and report on the RAP.

Interested? Please email andrea.verdich@socialsciences.org.au by 31 October 2023.

Social Sciences Week 2024

Following the success and enjoyment of SSW2023 (a summary and highlights are available in last month’s newsletter here), SSW is well and truly on people’s radar (our education sources say teachers and schools are already filling their 2024 calendars), and we’re gearing up for an even more engaging program in 2024. So, start planning now: what will you offer in SSW2024? Put the dates in your diary: 2-8 September 2024.

The wonderful thing about many SSW events is that their legacy lives on. As just one example, the University of Western Sydney’s new resource for schools and university students inspired by SSW2023’s Great Debate is available here.

Keith Hancock Lecture

Fellow Alison Booth delivers the Academy’s Keith Hancock Lecture Gender Gaps: Causes and Origins, 5:30pm 12 October at the ANU Research School of Social Sciences (RSSS). Free tickets and more details are available on our website.

Watershed book launch

The Academy warmly invites you to join us on Wednesday 18 October 2023 at Harry Hartog ANU to celebrate the lanch of Watershed: The 2022 Australian Federal Election, published by ANU Press, and edited by Fellow Marian Sawer, Anika Gauja and Jill Sheppard. The book will be launched by Fellow Frank Bongiorno. Register to attend and find more information here.

Academy international grants

Be part of an exciting opportunity to foster cross-border partnerships and advance social science research on a global scale.

• Suited to early-career researchers, the Australia-China Joint Action Program offers grants of $7,000 AUD and ¥35,000 RMB (learn more here).

• Grants of up to $5,000 are available for collaborations between Australian and French social scientists through the Academy’s Australia-France Collaborative Research Program with the Embassy of France in Australia.
  

Applications for both grants close 1 November 2023. Learn more about the Academy’s International Grants Program here.

Life Course Centre callout

Would you like to join the Community Advisory Committee for Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course (Life Course Centre)? The Centre explores ways to break the cycle of disadvantage in the Australian community and is seeking members for a new Community Advisory Committee. Members will meet virtually four times a year with reimbursement for attendance. Want more information? Contact alana.papageorgiou@telethonkids.org.au or learn more here.

Read, Listen, Attend

Read

‘Racism and the 2023 Australian constitutional referendum’ in the latest issue of The Lancet, co-authored by Fellows Ian Anderson, Tom Calma and Marcia Langton. Find Fellow Fethi Mansouri’s latest book The global politics of forced migration: An Australian perspective or a review by Penny Russell of Fellow Graeme Davison’s My Grandfather’s Clock: Four Centuries of a British-Australian Family.

Listen

Fellow Larissa Behrendt’s Speaking Out interview with Arrernte and Kalkadoon film-maker, Rachel Perkins, is a must listen. Or hear Fellows Jeff Borland and Warwick McKibbin in interview with Richard Aedy on The Money Catch up here with a Writing Festival panel earlier this year on intergenerational frustration, featuring Academy President Richard Holden, ‘Ok boomer’.

Seriously Social’s latest episode Who does Australia lock up? has just launched and it’s a searing exploration of incarceration with Fellow Eileen Baldry and Justen Thomas talking to host Ginger Gorman. Although most categories of crime have declined, some groups continue to be locked up more than others with devastating impacts over their lifespan.

And finally a big thank you to all our listeners as we say farewell to Seriously Social, the Academy’s groundbreaking audio documentary podcast series, when season six finishes in November. Please continue to listen and share Seriously Social among your networks to promote the social sciences. The team is grateful to have had your ears and feedback and for the Academy’s support initiating this unique program. We’ll be taking a break to consider options for 2024 and beyond, but we have a cracker last episode for you launching at the end of November, so make sure you keep listening for the latest and all Seriously Social podcasts here.

Attend

The Academy’s Annual Symposium on 24 November 2023 is of course number one on your list!  Register here.

You can register for the Keith Hancock lecture presented by Fellow Alison Booth on 12 October and join us for the launch of Watershed: The 2022 Australian Federal Election, edited by Anika Gauja and Fellows Marian Sawer and Jill Sheppard on 18 October in Canberra. Book your tickets here.

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.