March 2006 Projects Funded

Early this year, the Centre invited applications from all Australian universities with established Asian and Pacific Studies programs to submit applications for project funding under three Grant Programs - the Regional Collaboration, Cross-Sectoral Linkage and Institutional Linkage Programs. Applications closed on 1 March 2006.

Eleven applications were received. The Centre's Grants Committee recommended that the Director support Six of the applications which met the the Centre's funding guidelines.

Details of the projects supported follow

Applications Supported (March 2006)

Applications Submitted & Supported (Round Three 2006)

 

Regional Collaboration Program

Dr Lorraine Elliott

The Australian National University

Project Title: Illegal resource and environmental activity: the governance, security and regulatory challenges of ‘environmental crime’ in the Asia Pacific: Workshop

Project Aims & Outcomes: The emphasis of two-day workshop will be on establishing a cross-sectoral approach, involving experts in non-traditional security and transnational crime, environmental degradation and sustainable development, and good governance, law enforcement and capacity-building. It will explore options for establishing an international and inter-sectoral collaborative network of scholars and practitioners, including the possibility of developing a resource and information database on illegal environment and resource activity. This will bring together academic experts and selected practitioners from government and other relevant constituencies from within Australia and the region.

Funding: $15,000

Cross-Sectoral Linkage Program

Associate Professor Clive Moore

The University of Queensland

Project Title: Solomon Islands/Australian South Sea Islander exhibition at the Queensland Museum: Workshop

Project Aims & Outcomes: The project offers an opportunity to workshop the proposal for a Solomon Islands/Australian South Sea Islander exhibition with the Queensland Museum Cultures and Histories staff, SI and ASSI representatives and AAAPS members with particular research interests that may expand & enhance the exhibition and associated publications.

Suggested themes: The 1863-1904 Melanesian Labour Trade, Australia’s Contemporary South Sea Islands Community, Other shipwrecks, Collection histories, Contemporary society, Links to Other Pacific Nations.

As the Solomon Islands is in a period of reconstruction this valuable partnership in the cultural sector will engage interest and encourage cross-cultural contributions between Australia and the Solomon Islands.

Funding: $12,622

Doctor Jane Orton

The University of Melbourne

Project Title: The extent and use of local professional and business area knowledge and skills by Australians working in China

Project Aims & Outcomes: Undertaken with the support of the Australia China Business Council, this project will provide a brad and detailed picture of the levels of local professional/business area knowledge and skills that Australian personnel working in China need to be thoroughly competent; of current levels of local professional expertise; of what Australians on the ground find useful by way of area knowledge skills and how they develop expertisein situ; how their level of expertise is perceived by their Chinese colleagues.

The provision of such information would greatly benefit employers to understand better the working demands of their staff, and allow them to accurately tailor recruitment and staff development programs to actual work practices. It would also allow universities to sharpen the target and focus of professional education courses, more reliably linking study with practice.

Funding: $10,000

Professor Ken Taylor

The Australian National University

Project Title: Deployment of Cultural Mapping with ASEAN-COCI: A Capacity Building Project in Cultural Heritage Education and Practice: Workshop

Project Aims & Outcomes: The aim of this project is to review recent/current/future cultural mapping and associated activity in ASEAN with a view to documenting the academic and administrative frameworks and structures in the region that will provide inputs into: the content for a handbook on cultural mapping practice applicable to ASEAN countries and incorporating case studies; training needs in cultural mapping; a directory of ASEAN and Australian universities undertaking research in cultural mapping and linked disciplines; promotion of Asian scholarship in Australia. It will also provide a process for work-shopping the development of the handbook in terms of structure and content.

Funding: $28,000

Professor Jill White

SydneyUniversity of Technology

Project Title: Emerging Diseases Summit Avian Influenza: Building Leadership Capacity and Disease Preventions in the Regions: Summit

Project Aims & Outcomes: In light of the current threat of an Avian Influenza pandemic in the WP AND SEAR Regions the Summit aims to build on regional nursing leadership, disease prevention, management in core public health and risk management and to provide background information, a response strategy and a report that can be disseminated throughout the regions.

The key objectives of the overall project are to:

Funding: $25,000

Institutional Linkage Program

Professor John Anthony Clark

The University of Sydney

Project Title: The Australian Centre for Asian Art: Centre

Project Aims & Outcomes: This project aims to establish a Centre for Asian Art at the University of Sydney in the Department of Art History & Theory, to be allied with other research and teaching programs in the Department of Archaeology, Department of History, and Department of Religious Studies. There is currently no Australian academic centre in this field. The Centre will consolidate established excellence in research on Modern Asian Art, and extend this for the first time to the Arts of Asia prior to the twentieth century. It will include arts of the Islamic world, an area having great consequence for future inter-cultural and inter-community understanding.

Funding: $15,000

Doctor Tseen Khoo

Monash University

Project Title: Research Network into Asian Australian Diaspora Cultures: Network

Project Aims & Outcomes: This Research Network into Asian Australian Diaspora Cultures aims to offer an interdisciplinary space to support research into Asian Australian cultural production that complements other Asian studies networks/resources such as the Chinese History of Australian Federation site and the ARC Asia Pacific Futures Network 'Suez to Suva.' It will build research capacity and sustain momentum in the growing, diverse field of Asian Australian studies. The network will raise the profile of Asian Australian research to capitalise on international interest, and engage with the dynamic areas of transnational and diaspora studies. This will foster increased international interest in Asian Australian studies as a comparative context, particularly from Asian Canadian and Asian American studies researchers.

Funding: $20,000