Corporate Governance, Regulation and Accountability: The Role of Multinational Corporations in Delevoping Commerical Advantage from Institutional Integrity. The emerging market economies of India and China have become central to world economic growth. Despite a plethora of complex rules, regulatory reform agendas and industry-designed codes of conduct, doing business in these markets remains exceptionally problematic. Working in partnership with some of the world's leading multinational corporat ....Corporate Governance, Regulation and Accountability: The Role of Multinational Corporations in Delevoping Commerical Advantage from Institutional Integrity. The emerging market economies of India and China have become central to world economic growth. Despite a plethora of complex rules, regulatory reform agendas and industry-designed codes of conduct, doing business in these markets remains exceptionally problematic. Working in partnership with some of the world's leading multinational corporations, the project will lead to important practical and conceptual advances in the design and implementation of institutional integrity systems. This work has significant advantages for the emerging market economies and those seeking to enter into or expand their operations there. Moreover, it will add significantly to the visibility and leverage of Australian research. Read moreRead less
Big-Picture Bioethics: policy-making and liberal democracy. We live an era of rapid growth in biotechnology generating new and difficult ethical questions that need to be tackled by bioethicists and politicians. This project goes beyond typical approaches in bioethics to explore the "big picture": how policies are generated in ethically-contentious domains. It is important to examine how the values of different stakeholders are reflected in such processes to ensure that they are in accordance wi ....Big-Picture Bioethics: policy-making and liberal democracy. We live an era of rapid growth in biotechnology generating new and difficult ethical questions that need to be tackled by bioethicists and politicians. This project goes beyond typical approaches in bioethics to explore the "big picture": how policies are generated in ethically-contentious domains. It is important to examine how the values of different stakeholders are reflected in such processes to ensure that they are in accordance with Australia's commitment to fostering a multicultural, pluralistic, democratic society. This project will produce practical recommendations for refining public consultation in healthcare policy-making through an examination of three relevant contentious case studies in Australia with comparison to Canada.Read moreRead less
Just Rules for Incentivizing Pharmaceutical Research and for Disseminating its Benefits. Intelligent reform of the rules for incentivizing pharmaceutical research and for disseminating its benefits can cost-effectively decimate the global disease burden. Australians would benefit directly, through lower drug prices, enhanced pharmaceutical research employment, and improved public health, as well as indirectly, through reduced threats from foreign diseases and better relations with the developing ....Just Rules for Incentivizing Pharmaceutical Research and for Disseminating its Benefits. Intelligent reform of the rules for incentivizing pharmaceutical research and for disseminating its benefits can cost-effectively decimate the global disease burden. Australians would benefit directly, through lower drug prices, enhanced pharmaceutical research employment, and improved public health, as well as indirectly, through reduced threats from foreign diseases and better relations with the developing countries.Read moreRead less
Norms, Reasons & Values. Social norms often come adrift from the reasons and values that they are supposed to serve. Strengthening Australia'a social and economic fabric (a National Research Priority) requires understanding how norms work and revising them in changing circumstances. This project explores such ideas in relation to crucial issues-democracy, terrorism (another NRP), historical injustice and sexuality-and interjects practical suggestions into the public debate over how norms ought ....Norms, Reasons & Values. Social norms often come adrift from the reasons and values that they are supposed to serve. Strengthening Australia'a social and economic fabric (a National Research Priority) requires understanding how norms work and revising them in changing circumstances. This project explores such ideas in relation to crucial issues-democracy, terrorism (another NRP), historical injustice and sexuality-and interjects practical suggestions into the public debate over how norms ought be revised. It also furthers Australia's world standing in political science and philosophy and, by enlisting international scholars to help explore these issues, focuses the intellectual firepower of the world on problems of national importance to Australia.Read moreRead less
Understanding Japan's human-centred environmentalism. Japanese environmental activism has influenced attitudes and policymaking on the environment in Japan and worldwide for half a century. This project will demonstrate the strengths and limitations of Japan’s human-centred environmentalism and will encourage us to reconsider the tension between human satisfaction and environmental protection.
ARC Governance Research Network. Institutions and their governance are frequently part of our most pressing problems - not least in our national research priorities. Hence, institutions are invariably a key part of the solutions. GovNet unites three ARC Centres, two existing networks (RegNet, ANZSOG) and several other dynamic centres to create an interdisciplinary network of ethicists, lawyers, political scientists, economists and historians. It will tackle issues of institutional governance, fr ....ARC Governance Research Network. Institutions and their governance are frequently part of our most pressing problems - not least in our national research priorities. Hence, institutions are invariably a key part of the solutions. GovNet unites three ARC Centres, two existing networks (RegNet, ANZSOG) and several other dynamic centres to create an interdisciplinary network of ethicists, lawyers, political scientists, economists and historians. It will tackle issues of institutional governance, from small firms to global institutions - recognising both common governance issues and radically differing contexts. Together with APSEG and government agencies, it will apply cutting edge cross-disciplinary, theory-driven, evidence-based research to governance issues in the region.Read moreRead less
Assessing development: designing better indices of poverty and gender equity. Contributing to development worldwide, this research raises Australia`s global standing and helps fulfil the values and responsibilities of the Australian people. It strengthens the basis for gender-related and poverty-related policy development and service delivery within Australia and helps correct the current over-emphasis, in measuring domestic gender inequity, on the more privileged women.
Because severe poverty ....Assessing development: designing better indices of poverty and gender equity. Contributing to development worldwide, this research raises Australia`s global standing and helps fulfil the values and responsibilities of the Australian people. It strengthens the basis for gender-related and poverty-related policy development and service delivery within Australia and helps correct the current over-emphasis, in measuring domestic gender inequity, on the more privileged women.
Because severe poverty and radically unequal gender relations burden many of our South East Asian and Pacific neighbours, development aid remains an important plank of our foreign policy. By providing better tools for measuring poverty and gender inequity, this project can improve our understanding of our region and augment the impact of our aid.Read moreRead less
The Future of Financial Regulation: Enhancing integrity through design. The global financial crisis and the attendant collapse of major financial institutions have called into question the efficacy of financial regulation and the standards of conduct of the key actors in the financial services sectors and financial markets. Ethical conduct is fundamental to the integrity of Australia's financial services sector and financial markets. This project will make a valuable and innovative contribution ....The Future of Financial Regulation: Enhancing integrity through design. The global financial crisis and the attendant collapse of major financial institutions have called into question the efficacy of financial regulation and the standards of conduct of the key actors in the financial services sectors and financial markets. Ethical conduct is fundamental to the integrity of Australia's financial services sector and financial markets. This project will make a valuable and innovative contribution to the national priority goal of strengthening Australia's social and economic fabric by assisting market actors fulfil their professional roles in an ethical manner. By so doing it accords with the national priority goals of promoting an innovation culture and economy, and safeguarding Australia.Read moreRead less
Benefiting from injustice. This project argues that people can acquire duties to compensate victims of injustice when they benefit from these injustices, even when they neither caused the injustices nor could have prevented them. We explore the implications of this argument for the treatment of colonised peoples, and for policies on climate change and international trade.
Effects Of Trawling Subprogram: Dynamics Of Large Sessile Seabed Fauna Important For Structural Fisheries Habitat And Biodiversity Of Marine Ecosystems, And Use Of These Habitats By Key Finfish Species
Funder
Fisheries Research and Development Corporation
Funding Amount
$596,507.00
Summary
Predicting the response of megabenthos to the establishment of refuge/replenishment areas and acquiring an understanding of the ecological interactions between trawled and refuge areas are both essential steps in the effective design of refuges for fisheries habitat and the stocks they support. They are also necessary for the development of alternative fishing strategies that have less impact on habitat. To achieve these goals, it will be necessary first to obtain information on the recovery r ....Predicting the response of megabenthos to the establishment of refuge/replenishment areas and acquiring an understanding of the ecological interactions between trawled and refuge areas are both essential steps in the effective design of refuges for fisheries habitat and the stocks they support. They are also necessary for the development of alternative fishing strategies that have less impact on habitat. To achieve these goals, it will be necessary first to obtain information on the recovery rates of habitat and then the processes which link trawled areas and refuges.
We propose to investigate the population dynamics (recruitment, growth, mortality, reproduction) of structurally dominant megabenthos habitat organisms and document the relationship between benthic habitat and ecological usage by important commercial finfish species. These issues — habitat dynamics and processes — have also been identified at FRDC workshops as high priority areas for future research. Also identified as high priority, especially by managers of tropical finfishes, is the need for finfish resource monitoring. To this end, we also propose to examine environmentally-friendly, fishery-independent techniques for measuring finfish abundance, including remote (baited) video stations and acoustics. Documentation of fish-megabenthos associations is the first step toward mapping the spatial distribution of snapper and emperor grounds on the basis of key habitat proxies, a process now underway in the development of an Interim Marine and Coastal Regionalisation of Australia.
Alternative fishing strategies which have less impact on habitat and lead to increased productivity among commercial species will, by preserving critical habitat in refuges, in turn help reduce conflict between commercial extractive activities and conservation. It will also improve the public perception of trawling. Two possible alternative strategies include: changing from fish-trawl to non-trawl methods; and changing trawling strategies to corridor trawling, in order to allow former trawling grounds to recover and resume their role as fisheries habitat supplying stock to the trawl corridors, whilst maintaining or even enhancing catch rates. In either case, the recovery time frames for the seabed habitat — and hence fisheries resources — are important, because they will influence the economic feasibility of switching to alternative fishing strategies.
The results of this study will become increasingly important as the requirement for ecologically sustainable fisheries management is implemented in trawl fisheries from the temperate zone to the tropics. The lessons learned from this study in the form of knowledge of habitat dynamics, and methods for monitoring habitats and commercial stocks will contribute to a rational balance between ecologically sustainable fishing, biodiversity and conservation when ESD related management changes are implemented in those Australian fisheries dependent on seabed habitat. Objectives: 1. To determine the dynamics (recruitment, growth, mortality, and reproduction) of structurally dominant large seabed habitat organisms (ie. megabenthos = sponges, gorgonians, and alcyonarians and corals etc) important for demersal fisheries habitat and biodiversity of the seabed environment, in a tropical region (ie. GBR). 2. To model the dynamics of seabed habitat and predict the potential of trawled grounds to recover and resume their role as prime fisheries habitat. 3. To document the ecological usage of living epibenthic habitat by key commercial finfish species, in terms of species micro-distribution, shelter requirements, and food chain links. 4. To assess three fishery-independent and "environmentally-friendly" techniques for surveying tropical finfish resource abundance in inter-reefal areas, including fish-traps, remote (baited) video stations and quantitative acoustics. Read moreRead less