Research projects

Australia’s relationship with the European Union: from tensions to new paradigms

This project assesses relations between Australia and the EU and the opportunity for this engagement to further develop around a range of policies and forums.

Minutes of Evidence

A collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers, education experts, performance artists, community members, government and community organisations that sheds light on the little-known history of the 1881 Victorian Parliamentary Coranderrk Inquiry.

Australian International Conflict Resolution

The Australian International Conflict Resolution (AICR) project has sought to contribute to a conversation on how Australian states might best be able to mobilise their resources to support conflict prevention and resolution programmes.

Managing at the margins: women making it work in precarious times

This Australian Research Council-funded project aims to investigate the economic, social and emotional impacts of precarious work on women.

Nuclear energy and global governance

Projects on Nuclear Energy and Global Governance conducted in the School of Social and Political Sciences, The University of Melbourne.

Family secrets national silences: intergenerational memory in Australia

This project investigates the inherited family secrets, stories, and memories that inform Australians’ understandings of colonial history.

From garden city to eco-citadel: global greenbelts

Urban Studies Foundation (Glasgow) Project. This project focuses on the history of municipal greenbelts in the UK, USA, and Australia.

The intergenerational transmission of joblessness

This project unpacks the mechanisms, channels and factors that drive joblessness from one generation to the next in Australia and across Europe, Asia and the United States.

Girls growing up

Girls Growing Up is a qualitative, longitudinal research project that examines the everyday lives and imagined futures of young girls and women aged 15-25.

Affectivity of historical violence

This project investigated how the legacy of past violence shapes individual and social lives, forms of care and the very concept of what it means to be human in the aftermath of violence.

Wayfinding: A Photoethnography of Indigenous Migration

Anthropologists Dolly Kikon and Bengt G. Karlsson collaborated with photographer Andrzej Markiewicz to trace indigenous migrants from the borderland of Northeast India between 2013-2015.

International literature review of approaches to state support for peace processes

The project comprises an international, interdisciplinary network of experts from University of Melbourne and from across Africa and Europe.

Sworn to no master: A corporate and political history of Australian newspapers, 1941-2021

The Coral Thomas Fellowship, State Library of New South Wales, supporting new research into the history of Australian newspaper companies.

Unfit to print: A history and analysis of press power in Australia

This project is focused on creating a history of newspaper influence on Australian politics.

Australian welfare policy, 1950 to 2007: Continuity and disruption

This project aims to analyse Australian welfare policy from the end of the Chifley government in 1949 to the end of the Howard government in 2007.

Revitalising Indigenous-state relations in Australia

New research on the practice of governance from both state and First Nations perspectives.

Balancing national security and economic Interests in foreign investment

Dynamic interdisciplinary project featuring experts in Law and Policy at the University of Melbourne and Monash University.

Federalism and multiethnic political parties in Asia: Blending accommodation and moderation

This project aims to discover the kinds of hybrid federal designs and electoral systems that are most likely to be successful in multiethnic countries in Asia.

Europe-Asia Security and Trade Network (EAST)

The Jean Monnet Erasmus+ Network on Europe-Asia Security and Trade (EAST) brings together an international, interdisciplinary network of experts.

What makes a climate leader?

Developed countries’ responsibilities under the international climate regime.

Comparative Network on Refugee Externalisation Policies (CONREP)

The Jean Monnet Erasmus+ Network grant CONREP is an international, interdisciplinary network of experts from six universities in Australia and Europe.

Understanding political debate and policy decisions using big data

This project aims to empirically test a novel framework for analysing the relationship between political debates and policy decisions.

Getting welfare to work: A research program on governance reforms

This program of research aims to model and explain the governance dynamics of welfare to work in Australia and comparator nations.

Understanding the causes and consequences of political and institutional trust

This project used a series of cross-national survey experiments allowing us to better understand the causes and consequences of political and institutional trust.

Multicultural belonging and national identity in Canada (2006-17)

Conservative and Liberal Multiculturalism, General and Specific Diversity.

Scaling-up the impact of voluntary sustainability standards

From niche labels to catalysts to systemic change?

Women’s collective action and the village law in Indonesia

How women are driving change and shaping pathways for gender-inclusive development in rural Indonesia.

Nga Tūmanakotanga

Nga Tūmanakotanga (Turning the Tide on Prison Violence) is a project investigating the commissioning of institutional violence and how it might best be prevented.

Achieving justice in response to street and public sexual harassment

The project aims to develop victim-centred conceptualisations of justice in response to street harassment.

Telling Stories with Ribbons

Ballarat, Loud Fence and the Aftermath of Institutional Child Sexual Abuse

Against Erasure: Digital Witnessing of Manus Island Detention Centre

This project is developing a digital representation of dismantled immigration detention centre at Lombrom, Manus Island, Papua New Guinea.

Lockdown and the legal process

Researching the ways in which legal practitioners responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the impact of lockdown on courts, jury trails, and other aspects of the legal process.

The effects of female genital mutilation laws in Australia

The project seeks to produce insights into the effects of female genital mutilation (FGM) laws and the potential impacts of proposed legal initiatives.

New Regional Labour Circuits in the South Pacific: Gender, Culture and Transnationalism

This project investigates the transforming contemporary Pacific.

Risk, responsibility and experience: Exploring complex relations with alcohol

This project explores how risk and responsibility towards alcohol are understood and enacted.

Stateless children of migrants in Lebanon

This project examines statelessness experienced by the children of undocumented migrant domestic workers in Lebanon.

Helping the poor stay put: affordable housing and non-peripheralisation in Rio de Janeiro

This research will enlarge scientific understanding of the social effects of centrally-located affordable urban housing

Class troubles: Tackling social inequality in Indian schools

This project aims to investigate whether affirmative action education policies can assist in breaking down social inequality.

Developing a comprehensive sexuality education program for Vietnamese secondary schools

SAVVY (Sexuality Awareness-raising and Value-setting for Vietnamese Youths)

Fermenting cultures

This project focuses on fermenting cultures in Northeast India where fermentation and eating fermented food are central to many indigenous communities across the Eastern Himalayan region.

Disposal of the dead: Beyond burial and cremation

This research project investigates innovative and scalable alternatives to body disposal.

The future cemetery

This research investigates the potential of new and innovative technologies to be incorporated into Australian cemeteries and memorial spaces.

Endangered languages documentation project

This project is digitising and archiving historical audio and video recordings and manuscripts from Ranongga, Solomon Islands.

Economic, political and cultural brokers in remote Papua New Guinea

This research project examines the role of brokers in shaping flows of knowledge, wealth and status at a resource frontier in Papua New Guinea.

Ulaanbaatar Accessibility Appraisal (UNAA)

The aims of this project are to understand how ger district residents travel and develop sustainable and resilient approaches to address the discrepancy in levels of access.

The new digital governance of welfare to work

Getting Welfare To Work: a research program on governance reforms.

Improving Indigenous health and wellbeing over the family life course

This project aims to reduce Indigenous health inequalities, a major social and economic problem in Australia.

Community employment partnerships

This project investigated how a successful model for promoting employment for people with disabilities could be adapted for implementation in Australia.

Individualised supported living

Exploring the application of choice and self-determination with respect to the housing aspirations of people with intellectual disability (ID), and their realisation of these aspirations.

Planning for inclusion

This project is investigating how best to build the capacity of community organisations, so they are better equipped to support people with intellectual disability in culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities.

Provision of statewide professional development in behaviour, support and intervention

This project is investigating the effects of on-line professional development for behaviour support practitioners.

Enhancing sleep and well-being in working families

This project aims to investigate the role of sleep on individuals’ health by measuring Australians’ sleep patterns relative to work and family demands.

Learning to make it work

Education, work and welbeing in young adulthood.

Migration and Mobility Research Network (MMRN)

The MMRN initiative brings together a group of interdisciplinary researchers to focus on issues of migration, mobility, diversity and multiculturalism.

Myanmar Research Network (MRN)

The MRN was created in 2019 by researchers from SSPS (Anthropology and Development Studies and Political Science) and School of Geography.

Right-wing populism and the political feasibility of climate policy (POPCLIM) (2022-2025)

This project seeks to understand the relationship between right-wing populism (RWP) and opposition to climate science and policy, and to identify climate policy options that are politically feasible even in electorates inclined to support RWP.

Evolving foreign investment policies: causes and impact

This interdisciplinary project explores the nature, causes and consequences of the rising securitisation of foreign investment in politically sensitive sectors, critical infrastructure and data assets.

The impact of impact: How research value is created and assessed in the UK, US and Australia

Exploring the policy dynamics of global antimicrobial resistance initiatives

The project investigates global antimicrobial resistance (AMR) response by analysing political dynamics that shape AMR’s traction on global and national policy agendas.