Find a course
Grants and projects
Young People and Wellbeing
Associate Professor Ingrid Richardson led Murdoch University’s bid to be one of the university partners in the $27 Million national Young and Well Collaborative Research Centre, which is using new and emerging technologies and methodologies to improve young people’s mental health and wellbeing. One of the projects is developing storytelling tools and applications across a range of mobile and web-based platforms as a way to increase reach, connectedness, self-reflection, self-efficacy, resilience and wellbeing amongst vulnerable young people. Another project is involving young people in the creation of professional video games as an avenue to increase their wellbeing and self-efficacy.
Indian Ocean and SE Asian global economy projects
Ethno-historian Professor Jim Warren is principal investigator based at Murdoch's Asia Research Centre in a $2.5million Canadian grant through McGill University that will investigate four major historical issues of significant contemporary resonance in the ‘Indian Ocean World’ (IOW), a geographical zone running from China to Africa:
- origins and development of Chinese maritime trade in the IOW
- rise, expansion and influence of Islam in the region
- Africa-IOW economic relations
- impact of human-environmental dynamics on IOW economic and social activity
Southeast Asia’s global economy, climate and the impact of natural hazards from the tenth to the twenty-first centuries
Professor Jim Warren also leads a team of Australian and international academics, postdoctoral fellows and PhD students on an ARC Linkage project with the WA Maritime Museum to undertake the first broad investigation of the impacts of climate-related and other natural hazards on the economy, society and history of Southeast Asia from the tenth century to the present. The investigation aims to determine the significance and influence of climatic trends and natural hazards on the history and development of economies and societal systems in Southeast Asia, and to trace and reconstruct spatial, temporal and social patterns in vulnerability to the adverse effects of climate variability and natural hazards.
To meet these aims, the project will address the following key questions: How did climatic trends and natural hazards affect the course of Southeast Asia’s global economy, increasing human population, and social and cultural institutions of various societies? How did the impact of natural hazards affect the capacity of Southeast Asians to respond to such destructive forces?
Asbestos stories and health promotion
Emeritus Associate Professor Gail Philips leads a team of Murdoch media academics in an online $729,000 NHMRC funded project that showcases Australia’s shameful history of mining and use of asbestos, the legacy of which is being felt still by thousands of families losing members to asbestos-related diseases each year. By recording the stories of those who have been affected by asbestos and disease, Murdoch’s team of journalists, historians and health communicators have built up an online history of the issue and a new medium by which sufferers can connect as a community. The site also provides health information and essential links to medical and workplace services.
World War I projects
With funding from the Australian Research Council ($269,000), historian Professor Mike Durey is undertaking two projects on the Great War. The first is a prosopographical study of about 1300 British combat officers who were killed in the Great War. This research is a socio-military study of the changing British officer class, which focuses on their family backgrounds, their military careers (most were volunteers) and the ways in which their families remembered them, using newspaper In Memoriams as a key source. The second project is a study of about 800 men (Other Ranks) who voluntarily enlisted into the 11th Battalion (Lewisham) Royal West Kent Regiment between May and December 1915.
ARC Professorial Fellow Vijay Mishra
Professor of English Literature at Murdoch Vijay Mishra has held an Australian Research Council Professorial Fellowship since 2010. He is working on a very large project which involves examining in great detail the Salman Rushdie papers deposited in the Emory University Archive. The project should lead to the publication of a major reference text entitled ‘Rushdie Annotated’. During the Hilary Term, 2013, Professor Mishra was the Christensen Professorial Fellow at St Catherine's College, Oxford University.
Japanese war criminals
In collaboration with researchers at Monash and ANU, Murdoch’s Professor Sandra Wilson is investigating the repatriation and release of Japanese war criminals after World War II. Releases were negotiated between Japan and the nation that had convicted the prisoner. The project provides new understandings of the emergence of Southeast Asian states in regional diplomacy and of Japan's re-emergence as a regional power.
Indonesian in Australian Universities
As a National Teaching Fellow of the Australian Learning and Teaching Council, in 2010-12 Prof. David T. Hill developed a national strategic plan for the reinvigoration of Indonesian language teaching and learning in Australian universities, outlined in his report Indonesian in Australian Universities: Strategies for a Stronger Future. In 2013, Professor Hill has an Office of Learning and Teaching Extension Grant to update that Report, maximising the outcomes and impact of the research in the context of government policy responses to the White Paper on Australia in the Asian Century.
Postgraduate Film School Collaboration
Associate Professor Josko Petkovic leads a $220,000 OLT Innovation and Development Grant (2011-2013): Developing A Collaborative National Postgraduate Research Program For 22 Australian Film Schools. The project initiating sector-wide consultations regarding conditions required for a viable postgraduate research development in screen production while liaising with relevant state and federal organizations.
The Project has mapped out a synergistic network of national screen production research hubs, regional nodes and local knowledge trails. This framework will be used to form an interuniversity research centre to service postgraduate researchers with supervisors and to actively seek production grants. The organizational task is being undertaken in partnership with national and international collaborators and 22 Australian universities. The Project outcome is expected to lead to a more directed, sustainable and mix-funded national postgraduate development in screen production, one with local as well as global connections.
Creative Writing projects
Dr Simone Lazaroo has a grant from the Department of Culture and the Arts, WA, to research and write a collection of short stories The collection as a whole will explore issues of globalisation, travel (Western and Eastern), migration, consumerism, ownership, loss, aging and individuals’ struggles for meaning and identity at the juncture of cultures.
She will undertake research for some of these stories during her European Commission supported Erasmus Mundus Fellowship at the University of Oviedo in Spain, where some of her short stories will be published in a bi-lingual edition by KRK Ediciones. Lazaroo’s Australia Council Literature Board-funded novel Lost River: Three Albums will be published by University of Western Australian Publishers in early 2014.
Historical Thinking and Curriculum Renewal
OLT Extension Grant: Historical Thinking: Curriculum Renewal at Murdoch
Professor Michael Sturma and Associate Professor James Trotter lead this project involving a series of seminars with all staff who teach in the History course, which will focus on how best to embed Threshold Learning Outcomes (TLOs). A central element will be structuring the curriculum in a way which scaffolds the development of TLOs over a three-year undergraduate course.
The project will entail developing assessments which support and demonstrate the achievement of discipline Learning Outcomes. Following the recommendations of the Historical Thinking project, this will involve more opportunities for the critical analysis of primary sources, as well as the inclusion of visual and “new media” sources. In the final phase the project will include the dissemination of lessons learned through this process to cognate disciplines at Murdoch University and from other universities in Western Australia.
Connecting Radiation Affected Communities World-wide
Associate Professor Mick Broderick with Associate Prof. Robert Jacobs of Hiroshima City University was awarded (¥11,000,000 A$150,000) for a Japanese funded, Kaken-hi study The Global Hibakusha Project (2011-14) exploring the social and cultural connection between radiation exposed communities around the world. The project is the first to comprehensively explore the role of nuclear colonialism as a cold war phenomenon through the cultural and historical narratives of victims, from disposed indigenous peoples whose lands were contaminated to military personnel and civilians adversely affected by decades of atmospheric nuclear testing.
To date the team have visited or liaised with groups exposed to radiation in Japan, Nevada and the Marshall Islands, Kazakhstan and northern Siberia; Maralinga, Emu and the Montebellos in Australia and Kiribati; Algeria and French Polynesia; and China’s Lop Nor. The project is facilitating hibakusha (bomb affected) communities in sharing their stories inter-generationally using web 2.0 and social networking and as well as between hibakusha groups world-wide.
Learning and Study Abroad
Bringing the Learning Home: Projects to enhance study abroad outcomes in Australian universities
Associate Professor Jan Gothard and interstate collaborators were awarded a grant of $200,000 by the OLT to develop teaching resources designed to enhance the acquisition of intercultural competence amongst students undertaking study abroad/exchange. The project was completed in 2012. It focused on the learning opportunities for Australian students inherent in the three different phases in the study abroad and exchange experience, namely pre-departure, in-country and re-entry. The project team also analysed the demographic and cultural profile of Australian students undertaking exchange. The project team sought to generate learning outcomes for the exchange process and to support their attainment. Based on these learning goals, the team produced learning and teaching materials appropriate to Australian students which could be adapted for presentation on all Australian campuses.
You are currently located on the main Murdoch site