Mapping the effect of social enterprise on regional city disadvantage. This project aims to explore how social enterprises affect wellbeing and community capacity in disadvantaged areas of regional cities. Governments increasingly invest in social enterprise to benefit individuals and places. This project will use a spatial methodology to map where and how benefits are realised. To date, robust evidence about how social enterprise affects disadvantage is lacking, partly due to inadequate researc ....Mapping the effect of social enterprise on regional city disadvantage. This project aims to explore how social enterprises affect wellbeing and community capacity in disadvantaged areas of regional cities. Governments increasingly invest in social enterprise to benefit individuals and places. This project will use a spatial methodology to map where and how benefits are realised. To date, robust evidence about how social enterprise affects disadvantage is lacking, partly due to inadequate research methodology. This project expects to provide web-based design tools and applications to assist regional city communities and councils in the development of social enterprises that can help disadvantaged people and places.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
Special Research Initiatives - Grant ID: SR0354531
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$10,000.00
Summary
Social research network for sustainable rural communities. The triple bottom line of social, economic and environmental imperatives forms the accepted ingredients of sustainability. While the economic and environmental dimensions have been relatively well researched, there is insufficient understanding of the socio-cultural dimensions and how these determine environmental and health outcomes. The interactions between the dimensions are also poorly understood. While there are some researchers in ....Social research network for sustainable rural communities. The triple bottom line of social, economic and environmental imperatives forms the accepted ingredients of sustainability. While the economic and environmental dimensions have been relatively well researched, there is insufficient understanding of the socio-cultural dimensions and how these determine environmental and health outcomes. The interactions between the dimensions are also poorly understood. While there are some researchers in this field, they have tended to work in isolation. The development of a resourced interdisciplinary network to facilitate collaboration will increase the contribution and innovativeness of their collective research and contribute to understanding socio-economic determinants of dynamic regions and healthy rural communities.Read moreRead less
Developing Evidence Based Strategies For Addressing Childhood Vaccination Rejection
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$743,927.00
Summary
Parental rejection of vaccines is a global concern that threatens to undermine disease control. A lack of evidence hampers the responses to this complex and persistent problem. We will interview parents who don’t vaccinate their children to learn what influences their decisions. We will then hold community juries and a public engagement process to refine strategies for responding to vaccination rejection that are acceptable to a well informed citizenry, practical and ethically justified.
Caring for thoroughbreds: addressing social, economic and welfare issues in international horse racing. Horse racing is an economically valuable industry but visible welfare issues are challenging its future. This study addresses perceptions and the economic worth of these issues internationally. Research findings about values, and alternatives to jump racing and whipping horses, will help change the conduct of horse racing around the world.
Quantifying sea-level trends and extremes along Australia's coastal margin. Multi-decadal changes in sea-level, and sea-level extremes, cannot be well quantified along most global coastlines, including Australia's, because the high spatial variability of sea-level is under-sampled by the sparse set of long, high quality tide gauge records. Satellite altimetry provides an alternative data source with greater spatial sampling, yet experiences contamination from land within tens of kilometres from ....Quantifying sea-level trends and extremes along Australia's coastal margin. Multi-decadal changes in sea-level, and sea-level extremes, cannot be well quantified along most global coastlines, including Australia's, because the high spatial variability of sea-level is under-sampled by the sparse set of long, high quality tide gauge records. Satellite altimetry provides an alternative data source with greater spatial sampling, yet experiences contamination from land within tens of kilometres from the coast and also suffers from regionally correlated biases. This project proposes to address these problems through re-tracking radar altimetry waveforms to derive new data in the coastal margin, enabling the production of new inferences on sea-level change and extremes at dramatically improved spatial resolution around Australia.Read moreRead less
Vulnerability, autonomy and justice. Vulnerable people require assistance and care. But what are our responsibilities in relation to the vulnerable? And how can we provide assistance and care while avoiding stereotyping or paternalism? This research will advance ethical theory and be useful in solving practical problems in health research and policy.
ARC Centres of Excellence for Climate System Science. Our capacity to assess the threat of climate change is undermined by an unacceptable level of uncertainty in the understanding and modelling of regional climates. The Centre will undertake world-class research targeting identified weaknesses in the physical, chemical and biological components of the climate system. We will engage and nurture graduate students and postdoctoral follows through a program of graduate training and mentoring to per ....ARC Centres of Excellence for Climate System Science. Our capacity to assess the threat of climate change is undermined by an unacceptable level of uncertainty in the understanding and modelling of regional climates. The Centre will undertake world-class research targeting identified weaknesses in the physical, chemical and biological components of the climate system. We will engage and nurture graduate students and postdoctoral follows through a program of graduate training and mentoring to permanently transform our understanding of climate systems science particularly for the Australian region. The key outcome will be a dramatic enhancement in national capacity to understand and project the scale of future regional climate change.Read moreRead less
Activating and maintaining community participation in natural and cultural resources initiatives in the Murray-Darling Basin. The project goes beyond the rhetoric of participation to discover what factors activate communities and individuals to become involved in programs and voluntary initiatives for natural resource management. It assesses the effectiveness of existing communication channels and develops new models for more effective and representative participation. It combines the National M ....Activating and maintaining community participation in natural and cultural resources initiatives in the Murray-Darling Basin. The project goes beyond the rhetoric of participation to discover what factors activate communities and individuals to become involved in programs and voluntary initiatives for natural resource management. It assesses the effectiveness of existing communication channels and develops new models for more effective and representative participation. It combines the National Museum of Australia's expertise in environmental history and public communication with the imperative of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission to improve community participation in natural resource management. The potential for harnessing communications technology to facilitate new channels for participation is assessed through carefully evaluated pilot programs.Read moreRead less
Enabling social innovation for local climate adaptability. Climate variability and change is likely to be felt most acutely at the local scale in Australia. This is where inter/national and State policies are translated into practices to prepare for, and adapt to, anticipated impacts of heatwaves, bushfires and floods. This project will investigate tensions and potentialities between risk-based assessments by local governance agencies and innovations by local groups and Non-Government Organisati ....Enabling social innovation for local climate adaptability. Climate variability and change is likely to be felt most acutely at the local scale in Australia. This is where inter/national and State policies are translated into practices to prepare for, and adapt to, anticipated impacts of heatwaves, bushfires and floods. This project will investigate tensions and potentialities between risk-based assessments by local governance agencies and innovations by local groups and Non-Government Organisations. The research will utilise an innovative mixed-methods approach to investigate and to analyse the strategies and experiments of adaptation practices. It aims to develop new ways of identifying and implementing practical, local, adaptive responses that are contextually relevant, socially innovative and capacity building.Read moreRead less