Knowledge Transfer Connecting Melbourne

Transcription

knowledge connecting
transfer melbourne
Contents
A landmark audit conducted by the University of Melbourne in 2006 – the first of its kind
conducted by a major tertiary institution – identified 366 examples of knowledge transfer
projects being undertaken across the full breadth of the University’s disciplines. Those
initiatives also benefited from the input of more than 1200 non-University project partners
from within the government, business, community and not-for-profit sectors.
This year, the University identified some of the best-practice examples of knowledge transfer
that delivered tangible outcomes for the University and the partners, and recognised them
through the presentation of the inaugural Vice-Chancellor’s Knowledge Transfer Awards.
Those outstanding initiatives, in the categories of overall excellence (award winners and
commendation recipients) and ongoing project grants, are outlined in detail in this first
edition of ‘Knowledge Transfer – Connecting Melbourne’.
Welcome to Knowledge Transfer ‘Connecting Melbourne’ Beyond the campus
Knowledge Transfer Award Winners and Project Grants Recipients
Partnership offers breakthrough for world’s water woes
Risky Business
Reaching Agreements
Pocket-sized panacea for Child Health
Excellence Awards – Commendations.
Osteoarthritis the focus of new interactive DVD for physios
Soccer creates a pathway
Law students gain admission to the Bar
Forgotten Australians Horn of Africa youth arts project builds leaders in a new generation of Australians
Growing closer ties with Birchip
Museum program helps rebuild fledgling nation
Mentoring program to get science buzzing in schools
Knowledge Transfer at the University of Melbourne
Business at Melbourne The body and soul of the University’s cultural life Goulburn Valley Partnership The name of an ambition Future Melbourne
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KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE 2007
Welcome to Knowledge Transfer
‘Connecting Melbourne’
‘Connecting Melbourne’ highlights the works honoured in the inaugural Vice-Chancellor’s
Knowledge Transfer Awards 2007. They exemplify the breadth and diversity of initiatives
which are taking place across the range of University disciplines, in all sectors of community,
and on a local, national and international scale.
T
wo simple ceremonies staged
a short walk apart on a chilly
Monday more than 150 years ago
signified Melbourne’s birth as a
City of Ideas.
On July 3, 1854 foundation stones were laid on
sites that came to host the University of Melbourne
and the Melbourne Public Library (now the State
Library of Victoria). Both institutions continue to
thrive and stand as powerful testaments to the value
of knowledge in our society.
Initially, the University’s core purpose was to
teach. Within 50 years it had appointed specialist
staff and established facilities, and broadened its
mission to embrace research. Now, a century later,
the third strand of knowledge transfer has been
incorporated into the University’s vision.
Equal in value and importance to teaching and
research, knowledge transfer has been an integral
component in the University’s direct links to the
world. The Growing Esteem strategy released at
the end of 2005 recognised its importance and
acknowledged that the University is a public
institution that makes a continuous commitment to
the society in which it is deeply enmeshed.
The University’s research, education, and
technology connects through many different paths
- new products, policy, public debate, partnership
and exchange, cultural leadership, while knowledge
transfer back into the University from the broader
community informs and builds our own research
and teaching excellence.
The first audit of the University of Melbourne’s
knowledge transfer revealed almost 400 projects
across every faculty, involving more than 1200 nonuniversity partners. Whether it’s a local community
issue or a global problem, the University’s reputation
for excellence and intellectual leadership marks the
mode of engagement.
Knowledge transfer is being embedded into
all facets of the University. It is included in Faculty
and University structure and business plans.
The staff promotion policy includes the reward
of knowledge transfer excellence. Knowledge
transfer is being incorporated into the design of
new subjects and degrees, and reflected in student
learning experiences and teaching. New models
of partnership engagement are in train to further
enhance mutual-benefit outcomes.
‘Connecting Melbourne’ highlights the works
honoured in the inaugural Vice-Chancellor’s
Knowledge Transfer Awards 2007. They exemplify
the breadth and diversity of initiatives which
are taking place across the range of University
disciplines, in all sectors of community, and on a
local, national and international scale.
The outcomes are measured by the social,
environmental, economic and cultural results
they yield. They develop intellectual capital for
all partners, including the university. They are
informed by contemporary social and global issues.
The definition of the University’s role in society
might be evolving, but this third layer of thinking is
built on a solid foundation of knowledge laid down
all those years ago. ■
Professor Vijoleta Braach-Maksvytis
Deputy Vice-Chancellor,
Innovation and Development
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Beyond the campus
A feature of the University of Melbourne’s Knowledge Transfer Committee is that it includes
external members drawn from influential positions within Melbourne’s business, government
and community sectors. Two of those members – Claire Thomas and Harrison Young –
have provided their interpretations of knowledge transfer and its significance.
O
ver the course of a career
that has encompassed both
applied academic research and
public policy advice within
the Victorian Government, I have long had a
keen interest in strengthening the knowledge
transfer links between academia and
government.
Government is increasingly a knowledge
business and, as such, is a major ‘consumer’ of the
knowledge that universities produce.
Governments deal with many complex public
policy issues and increasingly rely on evidencebased research to inform policy directions.
University graduates now make up by far the greater
part of the public service workforce and the annual
in-flow of new graduates represents a life force
of new talent that refreshes and replenishes our
intellectual capital.
Within contemporary government, policy
advice is increasingly contestable, drawing on a
variety of expert and stakeholder input.
It is now established practice to seek expert
advice and peer review from external sources,
including private consultants; but it is the ‘deep’
research and inquiry that academic institutions offer
that can bring the insights needed for breakthrough
solutions to thorny policy problems.
To remain relevant and influential in this
increasingly contestable world of advice, universities
need to understand and engage in a timely way with
the practical public policy problems of the day.
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They must also continue to search for accessible
and influential means of transferring knowledge.
Erudite papers in refereed academic journals are no
doubt important to establishing the credentials of
the author among peers, but their content is typically
too theoretical and ‘remote’ to be of practical utility
to public policy professionals.
Among the contemporary models of knowledge
transfer that can work well for government are
collaborative partnerships between academic
institutions and policy professionals.
There are many excellent examples of such an
approach - far too numerous to list here. But one
that illustrates this approach is a collaboration
between the Victorian Government and Melbourne
University’s Economics Department that aims to
build capacity in both institutions in experimental
economics.
Supported by a grant from the Government that
is matched by the University, it includes a ‘fee for
service’ component and a general capacity-building
component.
This kind of partnership can pay dividends for
both parties – supporting academic excellence
whilst ensuring the relevance and timeliness of the
knowledge transferred.
� C laire Thomas is the Director
of the Economic and Financial
Policy Division of Victoria’s
Department of Treasury and
Finance.
Claire Thomas
T
he phrase puzzled me at first. What
are teaching and learning if not
knowledge transfer? What are
research and publication? Is there
really a third strand to the helix?
The idea, to begin with, seemed to be that a
university cannot live exclusively within its own
walls. Its members must engage in conversation
with the world around them. This involves both
talking and listening, a two-way flow of ideas and
benefits – professors consulting with companies,
companies providing research data for students,
intellectuals speaking truth to power, politicians
teaching academics the facts of life. Thus
understood, “knowledge transfer” involves a range
of lively interplay – and reasserts the “relevance” of
universities.
Having friends who are professors, I
carried the concept further, though. The walls
enclosing academics today are primarily those
of specialization. This is unfortunate, because
innovation often springs from ignoring traditional
boundaries. What better way to awaken creativity
than for men and women from different faculties to
go outside the walls and tackle practical problems
together? Or, without leaving Parkville, to redesign
undergraduate degrees?
Scholars focused on their own fields make
discoveries too, of course. That’s what scholarship
is. Paying sufficient attention to something leads
to seeing it in a new way. Crossing that intellectual
spark gap is also a species of knowledge transfer, and
no less miraculous for being cloistered.
Metaphor instructs. I am a ‘lay’ member of
the Knowledge Transfer Committee – not part of
the clergy. I have come to understand knowledge
transfer as a spiritual practice, a third discipline –
along with intellectual rigor and sheer hard work
– rather than just a third activity.
Difficulty incubates enlightenment. Explaining
your ideas to a skeptical public is harder than
lecturing to students. Collaboration can mean
abandoning reassuring jargon and familiar
assumptions. Discovery requires openness. I see
knowledge transfer as a way of going about one’s
business: an appetite for uninhibited dialogue, a
willingness to explore. Whether in a laboratory or
a café on Lygon Street, it is the magic that makes a
university great.
My own university, in conferring bachelor’s
degrees, welcomes recipients to “the company
of educated men and women.” I was graduated
more than forty years ago. I remember being sad
to be leaving. But, as I gradually discovered, the
company of educated men and women is available
anywhere you take the trouble to look for it. The
disciplines of the academy travel well. Whether you
study chromosomes or customers, sitting still and
listening makes you wise. The triple helix metaphor
reminds us that knowledge transfer is a strand of
life itself.
� H arrison Young is chairman of
the Asia Society AustralAsia
Centre and serves on the boards
of the Commonwealth Bank
of Australia and the Florey
Neuroscience Institutes.
Harrison Young
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Partnership offers
breakthrough for
world’s water woes
By Andrew Ramsey
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� P rofessor Iven Mareels
T
he suggestion that water could
be more efficiently distributed
through Australia’s network of
irrigation channels was met with
derisive laughter and a chorus of “who cares”
when it was f loated a decade ago.
That was in the late 1990s when the University
of Melbourne and water technology experts
Rubicon Systems Australia began grappling with
the question of reducing wastage from a vast system
that accounts for 70 per cent of the nation’s fresh
water usage.
At that time, water was relatively abundant,
cheap and dispensable, and the term climate change
was yet to enter the public’s consciousness. But
throughout the decade that the partners have been
working closely together, a series of droughts have
gripped Australia, annual water prices have soared
from around $20 to $1000 per megalitre and the
value of the precious resource’s every drop has risen
with each passing summer.
Consequently, news that the technology created
by the ongoing venture between the University and
Rubicon could save the 20 per cent of Australia’s
total fresh water volume that gets wasted in
irrigation is now met with reverence rather than
indifference.
Through the combination of complex
mathematical modelling undertaken by a team
(led by Professor Iven Mareels) in the University’s
Department of Electrical and Electronic
Engineering and Rubicon’s software and
engineering expertise, the partners have patented a
water management system known as ‘Total Channel
Control’.
The system represents a major breakthrough
in irrigation technology which has operated under
similar principles to those employed by ancient
civilisations over previous millennia, and has
increased the water efficiency of irrigation canals
from a maximum of around 70 per cent to almost
90 per cent.
In Victoria’s Goulburn-Murray water irrigation
districts, the savings that can be made in the course
of a year through the introduction of this technology
amount to more than metropolitan Melbourne’s
annual total water consumption.
Of the 2500 gigalitres that is diverted into the
Goulburn-Murray irrigation districts each year,
around 750 gigalitres is lost. Urban Melbourne’s
residents and businesses use around 450 gigalitres
per annum.
“Suddenly you are talking about almost
doubling the amount of water available to the urban
population without affecting your agricultural
output,” Professor Mareels said.
“And that can be done worldwide. Australia
represents just one per cent of the irrigation market
in the world. Our systems are miniscule compared to
some of the larger ones in China, Pakistan and India.”
“When you start thinking about what can be
realised there, potentially you are talking about
staving off conflicts and global tensions over access
to this essential resource.”
Engineers throughout the world have tackled
the problem of water loss in irrigation with varying
degrees of commitment and failure over the past
30 years, but it is the complementary skills of the
University and Rubicon which has yielded the
breakthrough results.
Rubicon designed a revolutionary solarpowered Flume Gate which acts as a sensor to
constantly gauge the water flow and depth, and also
incorporates a zero-leak flow regulator. In addition,
the gates are fitted with communications devices
which use the radio network to feed data from all
units back to a base station.
This technology provides water level and flow
monitoring to accuracy within a range of two per
cent, which ensures precise amounts of water are →
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Excellence Award. |
(left) and Rubicon’s David
Aughton reflect on the
success of the irrigation
channel systems project.
In Victoria’s Goulburn-Murray water irrigation districts,
the savings that can be made in the course of a year through
the introduction of this technology amount to more than
metropolitan Melbourne’s annual total water consumption.
delivered when and where they are needed.
More than 2500 gates have been fitted to over
1000km of channels through Victoria, New South
Wales and Queensland, with the fully-automated
operating system allowing each one to constantly
adjust and manoeuvre up to 20 to 30 times a day to
ensure water delivery remains accurate.
The system replaces the existing method of water
flow and allocation measurement, the Dethridge
wheel (invented in 1910), which provides a margin
for error of around 10 per cent.
That has led to significant wastage through
Australia’s irrigation systems - many of which are
more than 100 years old - caused mainly by meter
errors, outfalls (spillage), seepage and leakage.
Evaporation accounts for around only three to five
per cent on in-flows.
But before the infrastructure could be effectively
employed, the data that it yielded needed to be
analysed, modelled and understood in order to
provide a complete, quantitative picture of how
water behaved within the channel system. That
was where the University of Melbourne’s expertise
proved invaluable.
“The uniqueness is that we’ve got a non-complex
model that represents the behaviour of water in
channels and rivers, and from that we can devise
optimum control systems through algorithms,”
Rubicon chief executive David Aughton said.
“What we have now is computer-generated data
from real-time systems to inform our engineering,
as compared to the traditional first principles which
historically used physical data.”
“As a result, we’ve been able to derive unique
models to represent the behaviour of water in river
and channel systems.”
While the wastage of significant volumes of
water from irrigation channels has long been
recognised, it was not deemed to be worth the
complexities of pursuing because the remedial
measures were not cost-effective while the resource
was cheap and plentiful.
That scenario has changed dramatically in recent
years, which has made the decade-long partnership
between the University and Rubicon as prescient as
it has been productive.
The joint initiative has produced significant,
tangible benefits for both parties.
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“We (Rubicon) sought out expertise in this field
of systems engineering and we were fortunate to have
an expert in our own backyard,” Mr Aughton said.
“We have worked very closely together, and
have done so for 10 years, trying to solve a complex
problem. But even though this is a complex problem,
the University’s team kept it all in check in terms of
making it a real-life solution.”
“There is always a danger in academia that you
might get academics pursuing a problem for the
problem’s sake. But under Iven’s stewardship, this
project has always focused on real outcomes”
The fact that a number of the dedicated
University of Melbourne team working on the
project have taken up full-time roles with Rubicon
further underscores the bond between the partners.
Professor Mareels said the secret to the
productive partnership was that both parties acutely
appreciated their respective roles from the outset.
“The secret has been an understanding of where
the boundaries are,” Professor Mareels said.
“From the start we have said to Rubicon
‘whatever you produce, you can commercialise in
the water area’. That made them feel comfortable.”
“And they said to the University ‘you can do
whatever you want in research and in teaching, and
if you want to use that work somewhere else then
you can.”
“Another benefit for the University is that we get
to work with real systems, with real data on a real
problem that is of worldwide interest. That motivates
students, it motivates staff and at the same time it
poses really significant scientific problems.
“From the beginning there was recognition that
Rubicon had engineering expertise in the areas that
we don’t have, and Rubicon acknowledged that we
had valuable know-how and understanding that
they did not possess.”
“We treated each other as equals, and I think that
mutual respect is very important.
“We recognised that we both have valuable
knowledge that is different and complementary,
and together we could achieve something that we
couldn’t do alone.” ■
� ( Above and right) Food
production and irrigation
channel in the Goulburn
Valley district.
w F urther information:
Rubicon Systems Australia Pty Ltd
www.rubicon.com.au/about/Rubicon.asp
Excellence Award. |
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Risky
Business
By Andrew Ramsey
This is probably the most connected I have ever felt. I know
that I can choose to connect to people if I want to
– Sandy (aged 18).
T
he deeply-fractured relationship
between marginalised young people
and their communities became
acutely obvious to Associate
Professor Angela O’Brien when she was
completing her honours law thesis a decade ago.
Examining the issues facing young people who
wound up in front of the Children’s Court, Associate
Professor O’Brien despaired at the seemingly
endless cycle of custodial sentences, release and
re-offending that entrapped those bereft of support
networks and meaningful alternatives.
“They would turn up at Court, plead guilty and
just go back through the revolving door. I said to
myself ‘this is crazy, there must be a better way of
managing this’,” she recalled.
That ‘better way’ took the form of a landmark
three-year study formed from a partnership between
Associate Professor O’Brien (Discipline Chair
of Creative Arts at the University of Melbourne)
and Dr Kate Donelan (senior lecturer in drama at
the University’s Artistic and Creative Education
program).
The pair’s exhaustive project – ‘Risky Business’
– was conducted across several academic disciplines
and involved 10 industry partners in the arts, juvenile
justice and youth services fields who combined to
establish, administer and evaluate 10 arts-based
programs for groups of at-risk young people.
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It found that arts programs can impart positive
impacts on marginalised youth by helping them
develop tangible and empowering skills, as well as
creating opportunities for social inclusion.
The programs covered activities as diverse as
creative writing, stand-up comedy, song-writing
and performing, dance workshops and puppetry,
and were held in custodial centres and communities
in areas of high need throughout metropolitan
Melbourne and regional Victoria.
One of those programs involved the Snuff
Puppets - a Melbourne-based company which uses
giant puppets to combine elements of puppetry, live
music, visual and physical theatre – which worked
with an Aboriginal Community Secondary College
in rural Victoria.
Over two weeks, the theatre company engaged
with young indigenous people from across Australia
to design and construct puppets, prepare scripts,
co-ordinate music and dances to stage a public
performance at the College.
“The notion of developing their own story and
creating that together, devising the work, manipulating
the puppets, creating the music and then performing
for their community was a completely new experience
for those young people,” Dr Donelan said.
“For a lot of them it was the first time they had
experienced sustained involvement in anything, and
the first time they had performed and felt proud of
something they had done.”
Other programs resulted in youth performances
at the University’s Open Stage Theatre, music being
broadcast on a variety of radio stations, stand-up
comedy televised on community Channel 31 and
art exhibitions staged in Dandenong and Bendigo.
In addition to the 29 artists, comedians and
actors, the project featured more than 50 youth
workers and teachers and a total of 151 participants
(the majority of whom were aged 16 to 21).
Of those, 46 per cent were serving custodial
sentences, around one third were of indigenous
Australian background and almost 80 per cent of
those known to have attended school had been
educated to year 10 or less.
Many of them presented with multiple risk
factors such as exposure to violence, mental health
issues, disconnection from school, homelessness
and substance abuse.
“These kids came from very troubled
backgrounds and none of them had ever had artistic
training in the way that middle-class Australian
children have the opportunity to experience the arts
through school,” Dr Donelan said.
While a number of heavily-resourced research
projects in North America have investigated the
notion of arts programs as appropriate intervention,
‘Risky Business’ was the first multi-site, longitudinal
study of its kind undertaken in Australia.
� C lockwise (from top)
The project’s success was due largely to the wide
range of industry partners that Associate Professor
O’Brien and Dr Donelan were able to enlist.
Former Deputy Chief Magistrate Brian Barrow
shared the researchers’ commitment to investigating
the role of arts as an intervention activity, and was
instrumental in identifying other project partners
through the Department of Justice, Victoria.
Among those partners was Whitelion, an
organisation committed to making a difference for
disenfranchised young people, and community
projects supporter, Visy Cares.
Connections with Arts Victoria and VicHealth
then led to the development of the artistic programs
backed by funding secured through Australian
Research Council Linkage Grants and the Australia
Council.
Judy Morton, research manager with Arts
Victoria, said the collaboration fitted neatly with
Arts Victoria’s desire to examine in greater detail the
social impacts of arts programs for young people.
Ms Morton said the appeal of ‘Risky Business’
was not only its range of partners and the breadth of
the project, but also the valuable research outcomes
that it offered.
“We were able to participate in an extensive
project which meant we could contribute to and
benefit from research that contained a very high
level of academic rigour,” she said.
“It has also provided us with information that we
could use to lobby for greater resources for future
programs.”
“It’s given us the evidence to justify our approach
to supporting these longer-term and participatory
activities for young people.”
The project yielded important evidencebased research, articles and PhD material for the
University as well as close links with community
organisations and service providers.
It also culminated in a symposium which
brought together more than 100 academics,
industry partners and community artists to discuss
the use of the arts as an intervention for at-risk youth.
The study identified the key areas needed to
ensure effective and sustained involvement by
marginalised young people, such as the provision of
a safe, private working space, access to appropriate
artistic tutelage and programs, and the need to
exhibit or stage the finished work to provide the
participants with a definable goal.
The long-term benefits of achieving those
aims are reflected by the fact that some programs
– including a hip-hop music collective in Bendigo
and a women’s theatre troupe formed within a
custodial centre in Melbourne – continue to meet
and perform.
“One of the really important outcomes was that
it enabled the young people involved to be heard and
seen, and for their contribution to be validated by
the wider public,” Associate Professor O’Brien said.
“So much of this research evidence came from
a place where nobody goes. These were voices that
were never heard before.”
“That’s why this research produced really
important information. It helps us understand what
young people think and what young people need, as
opposed to what bureaucracy believes they need.”
Former Chief Magistrate Brian Barrow
confirmed this view.
“For much of the 43 years I have been associated
with the criminal justice system, the focus has been
on the criminal behaviour of offenders rather than
the underlying health and social issues that may
have contributed to the offending,” he said.
“Thankfully, that is changing. Risky Business is
part of that change.” ■
w F urther Information
Risky Business:
www.sca.unimelb.edu.au/riskybusiness
Arts Victoria: www.arts.vic.gov.au
Melbourne Magistrates Court:
www.magistratescourt.vic.gov.au
PAGE
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Excellence Award. |
artwork produced and
exhibited as part of the
Risky Business programs.
�M
embers of the ATNS
project team (from left)
Associate Professor
Maureen Tehan, Dr Lisa
Palmer, Professor Marcia
Langton, Odette Mazel.
Reaching Agreements
By Andrew Ramsey
PAGE
10
The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) has also
been an active supporter and participant in the
project since its inception.
The project began by examining treaties and
agreements made with indigenous Australians and
the cultural, social and legal implications that they
presented. It also contained comparative research
on treaty and agreement-making around the world.
Professor Marcia Langton, project Chief
Investigator and Foundation Professor of Australian
Indigenous Studies at the University of Melbourne,
believes the project has delivered benefits far beyond
the sheer breadth of data that has been captured.
“We’ve created a field of research by
conceptualising, identifying and collecting the data
and, in that respect, it’s ground breaking,” Professor
Langton said.
“The second great advantage of this work is that
we have created an on-line, international public
institution which means the benefits have gone
beyond national interest and those of the industry
partners and the indigenous communities involved.”
“There is now a true global benefit as a result of
our work.”
Much of the database’s appeal rests with the
user-friendliness and the functionality of the ATNS
website, which features a map of Australia from which
agreements and complementary details relating to
any geographical area can be easily accessed.
Dr Lisa Palmer, Chief Investigator and lecturer
in environmental studies at the School of Social and
Environmental Enquiry, said the need to reflect the
multi-faceted elements of agreements was crucial in
the website’s design. The mechanics of the database
were the brainchild of the University’s Australian
Science and Technology Heritage Centre (AusTehc)
and was developed further by Glen McLaren at
database technology firm, Environmental Systems
Solutions.
Following the success of their initial research, the
ATNS team won a second ARC Linkage Grant in
2005 to build further on their work in conjunction
with industry partners OIPC, Rio Tinto and partner
investigator, Dr Lisa Strelein from AIATSIS.
The current project examines agreement
implementation and the factors that foster the longterm sustainability of agreement outcomes.
Wendy Matthews, from OIPC, said that
in addition to the ATNS database providing a
comprehensive “one-stop shop” for all agreements
(including those dealing with native title) the
ATNS project also examines questions around
generational issues.
“Agreements need to involve thinking that
allows them to align with strategic and longer-term
outcomes, rather than to just suit the people here
and now” she said.
“That is one of the real strengths of this
collaborative work.”
Other key elements of the ATNS project are
the workshops and industry forums that have
been convened by the University team, which
provide an opportunity to bring together the major
stakeholders.
Forums have been held in discrete locations
such as Broome, and have been attended by a variety
of academics, traditional owners, mining company
representatives and government personnel.
“Those forums are very important because they
create an opportunity for all the relevant parties to
come together and flesh out ideas,” ATNS project
manager and Research Fellow Odette Mazel said.
“They fit alongside the database as another very
useful knowledge transfer tool.”
That assessment was echoed by Simon Nish,
Community Negotiations Advisor with Rio Tinto,
who said the mining company was delighted to
be involved in the project because it could see
the intrinsic importance of the research, and the
dissemination of that information about agreementmaking practice.”
“The expectation is that agreement making
in Australia between resource developers and
Aboriginal people will become more efficient
and effective as the knowledge base of the parties
increases,” Mr Nish said.
“The ATNS publications and material form an
important part of the knowledge base of agreementmaking practice.
“The forums arranged by the ATNS team are
an excellent means of bringing together resource
developers, Aboriginal groups, their advisers and
researchers to share experiences, mutual learning
and identify common interests.”
The information collected and interpreted by
the ATNS project not only provides an invaluable
resource that can be readily accessed by indigenous
communities, statutory bodies, governments and
corporate entities across the globe.
It also performs a unique function because very
little comparable material is available in the public
domain, and the data collated by the researchers
and contributed by agreement-making practitioners
around the world forms a significant part of the
ATNS team’s academic output.
“It fulfils a basic need for information, but
its significance doesn’t stop there. It has a truly
educational function,” claimed Associate Professor
Lee Godden, Chief Investigator and a member of
the University’s Law faculty.
The ATNS Database and Project is also
enhanced by the work of Research Assistants: Emily
Cheesman, Daniel Edgar, Lily O’Neill, Belinda
Parker, Alistair Webster and Marie Wellington. ■
w F urther Information
ATNS website: www.atns.net.au
OIPC website: http://oipc.gov.au
Rio Tinto website: www.riotintocoalaustralia.com.au
AIATSIS website: www.aiatsis.gov.au/
PAGE
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Excellence Award. |
W
hat began as an examination
of the myriad of cultural,
social and legal rights
enmeshed within past,
present and future treaties and agreements with
indigenous Australians has rapidly evolved into
an internationally-recognised resource.
The Agreements, Treaties and Negotiated
Settlements (ATNS) project has spawned a
database and website that receives an average of
more than 460,000 hits each month.
It has also yielded a series of acclaimed books,
articles and research papers as well as a number
of highly-successful industry workshops and
symposia.
But on top of its innovative and informative
research and communications work, perhaps the
project’s greatest significance lies in the contribution
it has made to the social and economic development
of indigenous communities and the enhancement of
relations between indigenous and non-indigenous
groups.
The project, which involves a range of industry
partners in addition to its inter-disciplinary work
across the University, has played a crucial role in
agreement-making by highlighting the importance
of proper processes needed to monitor and evaluate
the benefits (and pitfalls) of agreements to all
signatories.
It also provides the first comprehensive
catalogue of agreement-making in Australia, and
remains the only global forum through which
details on agreements with indigenous people across
various jurisdictions are publicly accessible.
ATNS Chief Investigator, Associate Professor
Maureen Tehan from the University’s Law School,
said the enormous task of conducting a comparative
study of the implementation of agreements and
treaties with indigenous and local peoples using
Australian and international case studies was
undertaken for two key reasons.
“One was to record the enormous amount of
negotiation and agreement-making that was already
going on that hadn’t been captured, and to dispel
the idea that somehow negotiating agreements was
threatening in a broader political sense,” she said.
“The other focus was to provide a significant
resource for indigenous people and for people
working with them in the area of agreement-making
to use as templates that showed what was possible,
what had happened elsewhere, who had been
involved and who might be able to assist them.”
The ATNS initiative began as a three-year
Australian Research Council Linkage Grant project
in 2002 when the University team worked with
industry partner the Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Commission, and Sydney’s University
of Technology. Currently the project is partnered
with the Office of Indigenous Policy Co-ordination
(OIPC) and mining company Rio Tinto.
Pocket-sized panacea
for Child Health
By Andrew Ramsey
IT’S not only the daunting size of traditional medical
textbooks – about as portable as a pair of standard house
bricks – that spawned the creation of the innovative
‘Pocket Book of Hospital Care for Children’.
H
ealth workers in the developing
world have long been restricted
by limited access to up-to-date,
easily-understood medical
information and evidence-based guidelines to
help them tackle child health problems.
But that need has been addressed by a landmark
global project – the International Child Health
Review Collaboration – that has brought together
more than 200 paediatricians, medical trainees,
students and nurses from across 20 nations.
The collaborative project is coordinated by the
University of Melbourne’s Centre for International
Child Health (CICH) in partnership with the
World Health Organisation’s Department of Child
and Adolescent Health and Development, and a
number of international universities and research
institutions.
Among the most significant outcomes from
this collaboration to date have been the production
in 2005 of the ‘Pocket Book’, its accompanying
training CD-ROM and a website containing
supportive clinical evidence.
The book has been translated into Portugese,
French, Turkish, Chinese, Russian, Indonesian
and Vietnamese. A CD-ROM version of the text
and its associated teaching material has also been
developed and is scheduled for distribution by 2008.
Designed specifically for the benefit of health
professionals in resource-poor countries, the book
has significantly improved the quality of paediatric
care in developing nations and has the potential to
save thousands of young lives every year.
Associate Professor Trevor Duke, director of
the CICH (in the Department of Paediatrics at
Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital) realised
the value of such a resource when he was working
in Papua New Guinea during the late 1990s where
standardised treatment guidelines had been
pioneered two decades earlier.
PAGE
12
He was one of around 130 paediatricians who
worked with the WHO to document the evidence
behind existing clinical guidelines, and then helped
present them in a form that was accessible and
relevant to doctors, senior nurses and other senior
health workers in developing countries.
“It is designed to cover fairly much everything
that a doctor or a nurse working in a district hospital
in any developing country would see on a day-to-day
basis,” Associate Professor Duke said.
“Health workers wanted something they could
put into their pocket, and the book was written so
that it contained only treatments, technologies and
diagnostic tests that were likely to be available in
district hospitals in resource-poor countries.”
“The value of the book lies in its simplicity,
its strong evidence base and the way in which it
integrates with existing programs.”
“It interfaces with the WHO’s essential
medicines list, it interfaces with the sort of
equipment that is likely to be available in resourcepoor settings and it is an extension of the globallyadopted strategy ‘Integrated Management of
Childhood Illness’.”
When the WHO disseminated its initial
guidelines to health professionals in developing
countries, the literature focused largely on the
management of children with serious infections and
severe malnutrition.
Through direct engagement with practitioners
in the field, the WHO became aware that health
workers in district hospitals needed evidence-based
guidelines which covered a wider range of common
childhood illnesses.
Within its 370 clearly set out and carefullyannotated pages, the ‘Pocket Book’ addresses topics
as diverse as triage and emergency conditions,
respiratory infection, diarrhea, fever, neo-natal
diseases, common surgical problems and HIV/
AIDS.
The book’s value is heightened by the fact
it has been created in consultation with child
health experts who have worked throughout the
developing world and are ideally placed to help
shape clinical guidelines.
“The critical appraisal of the evidence behind
the book is designed to be inter-active and aims to
engage people in the generation of evidence that
they will use in their every day clinical practice. In
that way, it’s quite a shift in the way knowledge is
generated and translated by the WHO, “ Associate
Professor Duke said.
The ICHRC collaboration recognised that the
production of clearer guidelines in isolation would
not sufficiently improve the quality of care, so the
training CD-ROM was included as an adjunct to aid
the implementation process.
In addition to being translated into Russian
and Chinese, the CD-ROM has been adopted
by Ministries of Health (in conjunction with the
WHO) as a basis for training courses in the Solomon
Islands, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Indonesia, Eritrea,
Cambodia, China, Fiji and South Africa.
By working with the WHO to have these
recommendations and guidelines included in the
curricula of university and colleges in developing
nations, the ICHRC collaboration also provides an
entry point for teaching evidence-based medicine
that would not otherwise be present in many
developing countries.
Associate Professor Duke noted that this
interaction potentially provided sustained benefits
and was less costly than the traditional reliance on
‘in-service’ training whereby doctors and nurses
received training based on WHO recommendations
once they had already graduated into the health care
workforce.
“There is a need for implementation at all different
levels of health systems, and a great need to support
teaching institutions and universities,” he said.
provide a broader, global response to issues such as
child health.
“Universities have the expertise to lead on
issues such as critical review of the evidence base
for guidelines and incorporation into teaching and
training,” Professor Campbell said.
“They can also be important partners in
initiatives to improve quality of care for patients and,
as such, the activities of the (CICH) in Melbourne
are all vital and highly appropriate.”
new technology will rapidly supersede the printed
version in the poorest region of many developing
countries.
Indeed, given those new media are only
effective when computer access is available, internet
connections are rapid and electricity sources are
assured, he claims that the production of low-cost,
hard copy information in book form remains among
the most effective forms of knowledge transfer.
“Our aim is for this book to be in the pocket
of every health worker throughout the developing
world,” Associate Professor Duke said. ■
Health workers wanted something they could put into their
pocket, and the book was written so that it contained only
Centre for International Child Health
www.rch.org.au/cich/index.cfm?doc_id=694
treatments, technologies and diagnostic tests that were likely
International Child Health Review Collaboration
to be available in district hospitals in resource-poor countries. www.ichrc.org
By providing health workers in developing
nations with ready access to medical knowledge
and evidence, the ICHRC collaboration may create
incentive for health professionals to remain in their
home nations which, in turn, could address the
chronic global shortage of qualified personnel in
those regions.
The collaboration is a truly international
project which (in addition to the WHO) includes
key partners at the University of Edinburgh, the
Kenya Medical Research Institute, the Aga Khan
University (Pakistan), the Capital Institute of
Paediatrics (Beijing) and the Institute of Child
Health Buro Garofolo (Trieste, Italy).
There are other universities and child health
institutions that regularly join the collaboration, for
which the evidence component is coordinated by
Dr Julian Kelly, a senior lecturer at the CICH.
Professor Harry Campbell, Head of Public
Health Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, said
universities played a valuable role in such initiatives
by engaging directly with instrumentalities to
“This is an essential part of all this work and the
philosophy that underpins it. The work has helped
give prominence within the WHO child health
program to the need for this knowledge transfer.”
The ICHRC website also plays a crucial role in
the two-way transfer of knowledge by inviting health
professionals and WHO experts to identify areas
within the existing medical guidelines that would
benefit from additional information or clarification.
It also allows for reviews of evidence to promote
wider understanding of principles throughout the
international health community.
Through interaction on the website (which
recorded more than 50,000 hits in its first six
months of operation) almost 50 reviews of the
‘Pocket Book’s’ guidelines have been completed,
and the website contains summaries of every
randomised trial in child health in developing
countries published over the last five years.
While the internet and e-learning products
have heightened the project’s level of inter-activity,
Associate Professor Duke does not believe the
PAGE
13
Excellence Award. |
“If concepts are taught at a pre-service or undergraduate level, then people will carry it with them
throughout their careers. If there’s effort put into
incorporating this sort of knowledge into undergraduate and post-graduate programs of education,
then it is likely to be sustained.”
“Institutions of training for doctors and nurses
in developing countries are very poorly supported
by global programs, and this has led to a world-wide
human resources crisis in health.”
Excellence Awards –
Commendations.
Professor Tim McCormack (Law)
– Assistance to the legal team defending
David Hicks.
Peter Neville (Victorian College
of the Arts, Music) – International
Youth Masterclass in Percussion,
Melbourne Commonwealth Games.
Professor Rob Day (Zoology)
– Abalone industry development:
local assessment and management by
industry.
Shortly after he was assigned to the
defence of Australian-born terror
suspect David Hicks in November,
2003, United States military lawyer
Major Michael Mori approached
Professor McCormack and asked
for his assistance in the Law of War
(International Humanitarian Law) and
International Criminal Law aspects of
the proposed trial.
As part of the cultural festival which
accompanied the 2006 Commonwealth
Games in Melbourne, the Victorian
College of the Arts School of Music
Percussion Department hosted an
International Youth Masterclass in
Percussion.
Through 25 years of involvement with
the abalone fishing and aquaculture
practices, Professor Day has developed
comprehensive knowledge and
understanding of Australia’s lucrative
abalone industry (the world’s largest).
Professor McCormack provided
extensive advice on the substantive
legal issues relating to the legality of the
charges against David Hicks, presented
numerous lectures and speeches on the
subject and had a number of opinion
articles published by influential media
outlets. He worked closely with Major
Mori and David McLeod (Mr Hicks’s
Australian solicitor) and he travelled to
Guantanamo Bay in 2007 to be present
at Mr Hicks’s arraignment before the
reconstituted Military Commissions.
Professor McCormack is the
Foundation Australian Red Cross
Professor of International Humanitarian
Law (appointed 1996) at the Melbourne
Law School, and the Foundation
Director of the Asia-Pacific Centre for
Military Law which is a collaborative
initiative between Melbourne Law
School and The Australian Defence
Force Legal Service.
PAGE
14
The VCA was chosen as host
organisation by the festival provider,
Arts Projects Australia, and Peter Neville
(head of percussion at the VCA School of
Music) was appointed creative director.
The Masterclass attracted 85
students and 18 staff from the nine
Australian tertiary institutions which
offer percussive studies, and they
learned a range of traditions and styles
from many of the world’s leading
percussionists.
The two-week Masterclass
culminated in a hugely-successful
concert at Melbourne’s Sidney Myer
Music Bowl which was attended by
13,000 people and featured a massed
finale for all 150 artists and students,
with a special score composed by
Melbourne composer Graeme Leak.
Previous research has shown that
abalone larvae rarely disperse very far
from their parents, and grow and mature
at different rates depending on which
specific reef they populate. For that
reason, attempts to manage abalone as a
single population along a large stretch of
coastline could put the entire fishery at
risk of collapse.
As part of this project, abalone
industry stakeholders hold regular
workshops in Victoria, South Australia
and New South Wales with Professor
Day, his fellow researchers and
government fisheries managers to
ensure that industry stakeholders can
better understand the dynamics of
abalone stocks, and take decisions to
ensure sustainable harvesting of each
population along the coast.
Associate Professor Rajkumar
Buyya (Computer Science and
Software Engineering) – The
Gridbus Project.
Dr Nikos Nikiforakis (Economics)
– Victorian Public Service capacity
building initiative – economic design
and experimental economics.
Associate Professor Marimuthu
Palaniswami (Electrical and
Electronic Engineering) –
Distributed sensor networks with
industry applications to healthcare,
defence and environment.
In recent decades, the discipline of
taxonomy (classification) has endured a
crisis due to a loss of academic expertise,
diminution of research funds and an
ageing cohort of taxonomists in herbaria
and museums throughout the world.
Associate Professor Buyya’s leadership
in the Gridbus Project has resulted in
fundamental research and advances
in Grid Computing, created opensource Gridbus software technologies
and generated partnerships with
various scientific, engineering and
business communities which apply
Grid technologies to solve problems in
e-science and e-business.
Grid and cluster computing is a
critical area of computing research
and infrastructure, as it provides the
mechanism to solve large-scale scientific
and industrial problems. The systems
designed by Associate Professor Buyya
are used by biologists, medical scientists,
environmentalists, physicists and
economists.
As part of the capacity building initiative,
Dr Nikiforakis has overseen the design
and construction of a purpose-built
laboratory for experimental research in
economics. The laboratory will be the
foundation for experimental economics
at the University of Melbourne for years
to come.
Associate Professor Palaniswami leads
a large research team that works in the
areas of intelligent sensor networks,
control, telecommunications and signal
processing.
Sensor networks enhance the
ability to gather reliable and accurate
information from a range of sources,
and therefore enable the issuing of
early warnings and rapid co-ordinated
responses to potential threats.
The University’s School of Botany, of
which Professor Ladiges is the Head, has
addressed the problem of skills shortage
in this area as part of its strategic plan,
and has set a goal to establish stronger
links with the end-users of botanical
knowledge.
The School developed a strategic
alliance with the Royal Botanic
Gardens, Melbourne as an industry
partner to achieve new curricula,
relevant training of undergraduate and
post-graduate students, employment
opportunities, and joint research
projects which have been funded by the
Australian Research Council.
As a result of this alliance, RBG
staff have been appointed as Honorary
Associates of the School and a number
of University of Melbourne graduates
have been appointed to positions at the
RBG where Professor Ladiges served on
the Board for 14 years.
His software for Grid Computing
has also been used by several academic
and commercial organisations including
Columbia University, the University of
Southern California, Sun Microsystems,
the Friedrich Miescher Institute and
IBM. The project has attracted more
than $2 million in competitive research
grants from the Australian Research
Council and the Department of
Education, Science and Training.
Experimental economics is a branch
of economics that uses laboratory
experiments to evaluate theories,
behavioral assumptions, and to test
policies and their implementation.
The controlled environment allows
inferences to be made that are
impossible with field data.
The advantages of experimental
methods have attracted attention from
both academics and practitioners.
Victoria’s Department of Treasury and
Finance is supporting joint research
through the laboratory and policy
development projects. In addition,
Dr Nikiforakis has offered a series of
seminars and training workshops to
enable public service employees to apply
experimental techniques and economic
reasoning in their work.
This work in the field of intelligent
sensor networks has led to several
collaboratively-funded projects
with leading companies including
the New South Wales Roads and
Traffic Authority (infrastructure
monitoring on heritage-listed bridges),
Rolachem (used in yield optimisation
in aquaculture) and Institute of Water
and Resource management (used in
monitoring salinity).
In addition, Associate Professor
Palaniswami’s leadership has led to the
establishment of a Networked Sensor
Technologies laboratory at Sydney’s
University of Technology which focuses
on industry collaborative projects.
PAGE
15
| Commendations
Professor Pauline Ladiges
(Botany) – Addressing the lack of
botanical taxonomic knowledge and
skills in Australia.
Osteoarthritis the
focus of new interactive
DVD for physios
By Rebecca Scott
PAGE
16
� P rofessor Kim Bennell (right)
explains the x-ray features of
knee osteoarthritis to research
participant, Garry Patterson.
The APA has over 11,000 physiotherapist
members and conducts over 400 regular
professional development training programs every
year. These include lectures, conferences, skillsbased courses and video conferences.
“We saw the DVD as an exciting way to provide
professional development,” said Phil Hart, Manager,
Professional Development and Specialisation with
the APA.
“When Kim Bennell approached us with the
idea we jumped at the chance.”
Professor Bennell has had a long-standing
relationship with the APA, having served on
committees, organised professional development
programs and co-authored its position statement on
managing knee osteoarthritis.
As a result, the project was an ideal opportunity to
transfer the research knowledge into clinical practice.
According to Mr Hart, utilising technology to
provide educational resources that are accessible
to all members and can be viewed at their own
convenience and in a self-directed learning
environment fitted with the overall goal of APA’s
professional development program.
There is nothing available at the moment
for physiotherapists which achieves all of these
outcomes, as well as providing an up-to-date guide.
“This DVD provides us with a cost effective
way of reaching our members throughout Australia
and educating them on the latest techniques and
treatment strategies,” Mr Hart said.
Reaching practitioners in rural and remote areas
is an ongoing dilemma for the association, with over
26 percent of its members residing in country areas.
“It is always difficult to provide professional
development opportunities to our members
who live further away from any of our centralised
education services,” Mr Hart said.
“This educational DVD is a much more accessible
tool and people can use it at their own discretion.”
He explained how the long-standing relationship
with the University has helped to develop quality
resources for practitioners.
“Researchers like Kim Bennell are at the cutting
edge of research,” he said.
“The University of Melbourne, in physiotherapy
terms, is the leading authority on osteoarthritis.”
“The industry will be able to move and change
with advances in research via projects like this one.”
“This is an exciting initiative which is unique
to the University of Melbourne and the Australian
Physiotherapy Association.” ■
Australian Physiotherapy Association:
www.apa.advsol.com.au
School of Physiotherapy:
www.physioth.unimelb.edu.au
PAGE
17
| Project Grant.
A
new educational DVD for
physiotherapists may be just what
the doctor ordered in the battle
to relieve the crippling pain of
osteoarthritis.
Professor Kim Bennell and her colleagues
at the University of Melbourne’s Centre for
Health, Exercise and Sports Medicine (School of
Physiotherapy) have come up with a cost-effective
way to educate physiotherapists on the latest
treatment strategies for managing osteoarthritis.
Bennell and her team in the musculoskeletal
research program are world recognized for their
work which tests the effectiveness of physiotherapy
interventions for the debilitating condition, and
have had work extensively published in that field.
Osteoarthritis is a chronic joint disease which
affects one third of people from middle-age through
to their older years. The knee is the most common
lower limb site to be afflicted, with people who are
overweight facing heightened risk.
Osteoarthritis sufferers find it extremely painful
and difficult to get out of a chair and to traverse
stairs. Sufferers who have been surveyed tell of their
quality of life being severely reduced, and depression
is common among them.
“What we want to do with this interactive DVD
is to educate physiotherapists so they are better
equipped to relieve the pain that these sufferers feel,
and give them back some mobility and strength to
go about their everyday lives,” Professor Bennell said
Professor Bennell said there were currently no
cures for knee osteoarthritis, and treatment often
involved costly joint replacement surgery.
Medications are costly and can cause serious
side effects. As a result, treatment to reduce pain
and disability via non-medication means is widely
advocated. Clinical guidelines also recommend
physiotherapy management for knee osteoarthritis.
“The important thing to remember is that
physiotherapists are accessible to anyone off the
street,” Professor Bennell said.
“No doctor’s referral is needed to consult a
physiotherapist in private practice.”
“So it is even more critical now that our health
professionals are up-to-date with the latest evidencebased practice for the treatment of knee osteoarthritis.”
The DVD has been developed with input by
clinicians and patients. It includes demonstrations,
animations and stylised diagrams to communicate
new ways of treating the condition. It also provides
material relevant to the ongoing rehabilitation of
patients, such as exercise sheets which can be made
available as a take-home guide.
Industry partner, the Australian Physiotherapy
Association (APA), has contributed equal funding
to develop the DVD into a viable resource for its
members.
� S choolchildren on the
ball as part of the African
Pathways Program.
Soccer creates a pathway
By Janine Sim-Jones
PAGE
18
“When you look at the European competition, about
a quarter of the players are African,” said Somali
welfare worker Osman Nur, from Mission Australia.
“These players are great role models for our kids.”
The world sport is an area where Africans have
long excelled, but in Australia few youngsters from
African families have the opportunity to play.
Organised sport is often too expensive for
parents from Somalia and other parts of Africa,
because they are on low incomes and have large
families.
“Many people might wonder why a family can’t
come up with a couple of hundred dollars for their
kids to play soccer,” said Associate Professor Jeanette
Lawrence, from the University of Melbourne’s
School of Behavioural Science.
“But if you have 10 children you just cannot
afford it. You cannot pay for one or two of your
children to play soccer, get them to share shoes and
send different kids every week.”
Associate Professor Lawrence and Mr Osman
are two of the key players in African Pathways, a
program which has Somali primary students and
their non-African classmates involved in regular
competitions on the soccer pitches of Olympic
Village and Haig St primary schools in Heidelberg
and Bellfield Primary School, at Preston in
Melbourne’s north.
The African Pathways Program, a partnership
between Mission Australia and the University of
Melbourne, not only gives the students a chance to
hone their soccer prowess. It is part of a wider plan
to improve their school performance and get their
parents more involved in the school community.
Associate Professor Lawrence said although
African parents have high aspirations for their
children, many African children struggle in the
Australian school system, particularly with the
transition from primary to secondary school.
The reasons for this are varied. Some parents
speak little English. Others are well educated but
are used to a very different education system, where
parents have little interaction with the school.
So far African Pathways has resulted in roundrobin soccer and basketball competitions, English
conversation and social groups language sessions for
Somali and Sudanese mothers.
Associate Professor Lawrence – working closely
with Mr Osman and the African Pathways workers
- has conducted research among Heidelberg and
Preston’s African communities to identify their needs.
This information has not only aided the
development of the African Pathways program but
has also resulted in immediate assistance being
offered when it is needed.
Mission Australia has already provided about
25 computers to Olympic Village Primary School
and local Somali families, but Associate Professor
Lawrence said more English language support for
parents and books printed in Somali language are
also needed.
Associate Professor Lawrence’s colleague,
Agnes Dodds, from the University of Melbourne’s
Medical Education Unit, has also been an integral
part of African Pathways. Also in the research team
are Professor Jacqueline Goodnow, an eminent
developmental psychologist from Macquarie
University, and Dr Kellie Karantzas, a health
psychologist.
Ms Dodds has developed a program framework
and evaluation system, which will enable Mission
Australia to assess the effectiveness of the program.
It also provides a model which can be easily
replicated for other service programs.
Ms Dodds said African Pathways provided a
unique opportunity for the University of Melbourne
students and staff.
only benefit Heidelberg’s African community but
other groups as well.
“We believe African Pathways is an innovation
that will sit outside of the two organisations that
have created it,” she said.
“In the community sector we often have little
money and evaluation of programs is often tacked
on to the end.
“Agnes and Jeanette have been involved in the
start, and this has resulted in developing a really
robust model which provides us with evidence that
allows us to set out explicit goals around the issues
we are going to tackle.
“It also gives us great evidence on which to base
our advocacy strategy.
Ms Hunt said Associate Professor Lawrence and
Ms Dodds have also shown a great commitment
to making positive and constructive changes to
improve other people’s lives.
“Lots of academics study problems and issues, but
in this project Agnes and Jeanette have worked with
us with the intention of assisting a group of people to
move forward and make a difference,” she said.
Olympic Village Primary School principal Libby
Young said African Pathways has already shown
some tangible benefits.
Many African children struggle in the Australian school
system, particularly with the transition from primary to
secondary school.
A group of Honours and third year psychology
students were regular visitors at soccer matches
in Term three. Although they were there to make
observations for Mission Australia, they also cut
up oranges at the soccer and helped out the end of
season barbecue.
“Too often Honours students don’t get to work
on real-world projects,” said Ms Dodds.
“African Pathways has allowed them to work on
a project which is more than theoretical interest.”
Ms Dodds said academics can learn much about
working with corporate organisations and advocacy
by working on programs such as African Pathways.
“The program does not offer conventional
academic rewards in that it is not clear cut and fast
and you don’t get a lot of papers from it in the short
term,” she said.
Mission Australia Victorian Operations
Manager Jane Hunt hopes African Pathways will not
“When Somali parents come along and watch
the soccer they become familiar with the teachers
and become more confident about coming to the
school,” she said.
“There has been a subtle shift in Somali parents’
attitudes towards being involved in the school. They
have been asked their opinion and seen that people
have valued what they have had to say.”
Meanwhile, Mr Osman said African Pathways
was having an impact beyond the school
community, as news of the project spreads through
the Horn of Africa community via word of mouth.
“The kids come up to me at Mosque now and
ask me when they can come to the school and play
soccer,” he said. ■
Mission Australia: www.mission.com.auau/
PAGE
19
| Project Grant.
To soccer-mad young Somalis, the elite footballers
of the European leagues are heroes.
Law students gain
admission to the Bar
By David Scott
� Th
e Law School at
University Square in
Parkville.
PAGE
20
confirmed by both parties, is then registered on
Careers Online to cover the student for insurance
purposes.
“The big benefit for the students is that they
get valuable professional and practical experience
outside the law school, and build professional
contacts” said Angela Edwards, Law School Careers
Consultant.
“But we could see that the barristers would
also appreciate the highly-developed research
skills our students have, particularly in the on-line
environment. Both sides could learn from each other.”
It is a move that has been thoroughly embraced
by the Bar. Mr Shand said the association places
great importance on mentoring, from law students
through to new barristers.
More than that, however, Mr Shand said the Bar
actively engages with the community to provide
information on the role of barristers and their
contribution to the law through its website, oral
history project and the hosting of school groups.
“It’s not about trumpeting us as barristers, but
more about encouraging people to understand what
we do and the importance of the rule of law,” he said
And Mr Shand says that there are positive flowon effects for both institutions with joint initiatives
such as the Research Assistants Scheme. Working
with external organisations opens up the Bar to
different ideas, experiences and expertise, he added.
“When we engage with people outside the Bar,
they necessarily come with a different perspective,
which makes us more effective in achieving what we
want to achieve,” Mr Shand said.
It was this desire to engage more directly with
the wider community that got the Law School
thinking about the possibilities.
While the University and the Bar have a
long-standing relationship established through
informal work experience arrangements and
former graduates going on to become barristers,
Ms Edwards said it became important to formalise
the relationship, to build on it and to take it further.
“By providing a more formal arrangement, [this
program] will serve to build stronger external faculty
links with the legal profession,” Ms Edwards said.
While barristers at the Victorian Bar have
offered work experience to students in the past,
the arrangements have often been ad hoc at best.
The new arrangements, however, help not just
by providing students with professional work
experience and exposure to potential professional
contacts, they also increase their employment
opportunities.
“As a careers consultant, I talk to students about
the importance of first-hand experience, so it’s good
to be able to see such practical experience readily
available,” Ms Edwards said.
“Many students would do unpaid work if they
had to - they need and want ‘real’ experience outside
the lecture theatre such as this.”
While the students will get to see the Bar and
participate in everything from legal research to
preparing briefs and attending court, Mr Shand
believes the Bar will likewise benefit from the
students’ energy, enthusiasm, desire to learn and
research skills.
“The University can’t bring to students the
practical experience of life here at the Bar, they just
can’t do that,” Mr Shand said.
“On the other hand, we can’t bring to our
members the rich pool of legal research materials
and expertise that comes from academic training
and research.”
And as for the future? “It would certainly be
rewarding to see the experience gained from this
program on [the students’] CVs down the track,”
Ms Edwards said.
“Barristers and students are constantly hooking
up and getting into arrangements, so the continued
use of the system is important, and it will be good to
quantify it down the track.”
It’s a union that Michael Shand QC believes can
only help both institutions in the future.
“It’s my experience over the last seven years on
the Bar Council that the most effective initiatives
and programs we’re involved in come through the
Bar working in collaboration with other individuals
or organisations.” he said.
“Likewise, with this project, it works for the
mutual benefit of both the Victorian Bar and the
Melbourne Law School.” ■
Melbourne Law School: www.law.unimelb.edu.au
Victorian Bar: www.vicbar.com.au
About the Victorian Bar
The Victorian Bar is Victoria’s professional association for lawyers practising solely as barristers. The
Victorian Bar is proud of its tradition of providing in the public interest, strong and independent legal
representation and advice without fear or favour to all in the community.
The association is incorporated under the Associations Incorporation Act 1981 as “The Victorian
Bar Inc.” Each member of the Bar has undertaken by signing the Roll of Counsel to practice exclusively
as a barrister. The Bar is a constituent member of the Law Council of Australia and is affiliated with the
Australian Bar Association.
PAGE
21
| Project Grant.
M
ichael Shand QC has vivid
memories of the Victorian Bar
from when he was studying law
at the University of Melbourne.
“I can remember coming in to Owen Dixon
Chambers East, the old building, at five o’clock in
the afternoon to get a lift home with prominent
Melbourne silk Daryl Davies QC, who was the
father of a school friend, Greg Davies who is now
also a QC,” Mr Shand said.
“I can remember walking into his chambers and
seeing his desk full of papers. That was the very first
time I remember thinking, ‘This is where barristers
work’.”
Fast forward to 2007 and the University’s latest
crop of students at the Law School now have their
own opportunity to sample life at the Victorian
Bar. The Melbourne Law School and Victorian
Bar Research Assistants Scheme was launched
in August this year, a joint initiative between the
Victorian Bar, the Law School and the University’s
Career and Employment service, to provide
practical legal experience to both Bachelor of Laws
(LLB) and Juris Doctor students.
It’s an opportunity that Mr Shand, now
Chairman of the Victorian Bar Council, wishes was
available to students all those years ago.
“[Back then] it was very much a case of who you
knew and what your network was,” he said.
“Can you imagine, therefore, how closed the Bar
was to students generally? The students who didn’t
have the contacts had little prospect of knowing
what on earth the Bar was about.”
The Research Assistants Scheme, the first of
its kind in Victoria, brings together students of
the Melbourne Law School and barristers at the
Victorian Bar. It is facilitated by an on-line database
unique to the Scheme.
Law students interested in knowing more about
the work of a barrister can register their interest in
participating as a research assistant for the Bar on
the website, and outline their areas of experience
and the times that they are available.
In turn, barristers can log into the database via
a secure portal from the Victorian Bar’s website
and search for suitable law students with a specific
research background, such as intellectual property
or media. The Student Work Placement, once
What did Victoria’s
orphanages look like after
World War Two? How
were they staffed, and who
were they accountable to?
These and other questions
often arise when people
attempt to research
their sometimes painful
childhood years spent
in institutional care. The
answers are not always
easy to find.
A
Knowledge Transfer grant from the
University is helping to establish
a digital archiving project in the
child and family welfare sector in
Victoria. Although still in its embryonic stages,
the project has the potential to revolutionise
records and the maintenance of important
cultural and historical assets in this highlysensitive area.
“If this project is successful, the plan for the
future is to create a permanent, easily-accessible
resource for care leavers, their families and anyone
interested in the history of institutional care in
Victoria,” said Professor Cathy Humphreys the
inaugural Alfred Felton Chair in the University of
Melbourne’s School of Nursing and Social Work.
The website – embedded in a wider ‘knowledge
in action” project - was initiated by the Centre for
Excellence in Child and Family Welfare (the peak
body for child and family welfare community
sector organisations in Victoria) and Professor
Humphreys. The two main partners, who have a
strong collaborative relationship, will work closely
with the University’s award-winning eScholarship
Research Centre.
The website will be a repository of information
about research projects in the child and family
welfare sector, and will be accessible to practitioners
and policy makers. It will complement the work
done by agencies and organisations such as the
Care Leavers of Australia Network (CLAN) and its
Victorian arm, VANISH. →
PAGE
22
Forgotten A
By Amanda Tattam
| Project Grant.
Australians
� Th
e University of Melbourne’s
Professor Cathy Humphreys
(centre) meets with the Centre for
Excellence in Child and Family
Welfare’s Coleen Clare (left) and
Richard Vines.
PAGE
23
Victoria has more than 95 community
organisations caring for children and families, and
any academic wanting to engage with the sector
has to navigate a complex range of priorities and
organisations. The vision of a collaboration between
community sector organisations and the University
of Melbourne has been supported by a grant from
the Alfred Felton Trust, which sponsored a chair in
child and family welfare.
“The idea of the position was not to have a
traditional professorship, but rather to be employed
through the University of Melbourne to support the
development of research and knowledge to inform
practice within the child and family welfare sector,”
Professor Humphreys said.
The Centre for Excellence is well known for its
leadership role in family services and child welfare
and in running a foster care recruitment service.
It has also been involved in a statewide ‘Forgotten
Australians’ project which researches the support
needed for people leaving institutional care.
“It was felt that some of the records management
issues highlighted by this project would lend
themselves to using the University’s On-line Heritage
Resource Manager (OHRM) web-database software
system,” Professor Humphreys explained.
Coleen Clare, chief executive officer of the
Centre for Excellence, is excited about the possibility
of extending opportunities for people leaving care to
have access to a full and appropriate record of their
history in care and for older care leavers – ‘Forgotten
Australians’ - to have a better chance to trace their
care lives in a more supportive and helpful way.
“This project builds on the work of the statewide
reference group for ‘Forgotten Australians’ and will
greatly improve the knowledge about identity for
Victorian care leavers,” she said.
The landmark 2004 Australian Senate Inquiry
into Children in Institutional care made a series of
recommendations about records management, and
not just individual records.
Being able to understand the social landscape
helps people to come to terms with what happened
to them while in institutional care, Professor
Humphreys said.
“A lot of the older care leavers tell us that they don’t
just want to see records, they want to understand the
institution they were living in more broadly,” she said.
“So it’s about the context in which they came
into care and lived in care.”
The website collaboration has been welcomed by
Leonie Sheedy one of the co-founders of CLAN.
“Our history will be acknowledged and we will
no longer be invisible,” she said.
Leonie, who spent 13 years of her childhood
in an orphanage, said it was also important that
researchers had an academically-based resource.
“There is a great need for more social research
into children who were separated from their
families,” she said. ■
Who are the ‘Forgotten Australians’?
Over half a million Australians have been cared
for in orphanages, out of home care or some
other form of institutional care as children
during the twentieth century, according to
the 2004 report of the Senate Inquiry into
the ‘Forgotten Australians.’ Many thousands
endured physical, emotional and sexual abuse
while in care and the legacy of this abuse
continues.
Children were placed in care for a myriad
of reasons including being orphaned, being
born to a single mother, family dislocation from
domestic violence, divorce or separation, family
poverty and parents’ inability to cope with their
children (often as a result of some form of crisis
or hardship).
Among the report’s 39 recommendations are
references to maintaining archives and records
of care leavers and this has prompted a renewal
of interest in not only preserving historical
records, but ensuring that current records
management meets best practice guidelines.
w R eport: www.aph.gov.au/Senate/
committee/clac_ctte/inst_care/report/
eScholarship Research Centre:
www.esrc.unimelb.edu.au
Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare:
www.cwav.asn.au
Care Leavers Australia Network: www.clan.org.au
eScholarship Research Centre – defining best practice in archives management
The University of Melbourne’s eScholarship Research Centre in the Information Services division
grew out of the Australian Science Archiving Project (1985-1999), and the Australian Science and
Technology Heritage Centre (1999-2006). It has a strong international track record of helping other
large organisations with their archives, records and knowledge management. The conceptual approach
it has developed, based on contextual information management, is being utilised by the International
Atomic Energy Authority to tackle the almost imponderable problem of long-term management of
radioactive waste information. Another large project involves the digitisation of the records of mental
health patients dating back to 1527 for the Bethlam Royal Hospital Archives and Museum in England.
The eScholarship Research Centre Director, Gavan McCarthy, has recently won the $15,000
Ian McLean Award from National Archives Australia to work on a project based around the records of
Tasmanian convicts.
PAGE
24
Horn of Africa youth arts
project builds leaders in a new
generation of Australians
� P articipants in the Horn
By Katherine Smith and Sue Clark
T
he courage and commitment of
a small group of young Africans
who, as refugees, escaped from the
crisis-torn regions of the Horn of
Africa is on show in an inspiring arts project
underway at the University of Melbourne’s
Faculty of the Victorian College of the Arts
(VCA).
At its heart, the ‘Horn of Africa Arts Partnership
Program’ involves 14 young African people between
the ages of 17 and 25 who work together every
weekend over a 12-week period with established
professional artists in dance, drumming and
singing, songwriting and poetry, and story-telling.
Group members aim to become role models
for other young Africans, and they are working
through the arts to develop their artistic capabilities.
In the words of project manager Sue Clark, through
improving their community leadership skills they
want to make a difference in a new world.
The young people participating in the workshops
have a challenging past, and so the opportunity to
creatively share their stories is vital in bridging their
past and creating their future.
Ms Clark said the arts can help to forge
relationships between their cultures of origin and
the broader Australian society in which they now
find themselves.
“They are true survivors,” she said.
Community leader Melika Yassin Sheikh Eldin
from the Horn of Africa Community Network, who
has been involved in the planning of the project,
said: “Art is our soul. We haven’t learned it; we have
been born with it. We want to enrich the culture of
this young Australian nation. We have to show by
the way we act how much we know.”
The current workshop series forms a vital part of
the ‘Horn of Africa Arts Partnership Program’ which
is being jointly organised by the VCA’s Community
Cultural Development (CCD) Unit and the Horn
of Africa Community Network Association, with
the assistance of the African Youth Centre based in
Footscray, in Melbourne’s inner-west.
Sue Clark (Head of CCD Unit at VCA) said the
aim of the program is to provide a ‘creative space’ that
enables young artists and Horn of Africa community
members to engage in the arts, explore issues of
re-settlement and build a pathway to employment
through the arts as a community enterprise.
Ms Clark said the invitation to find new
solutions to the issues of resettlement came from
Paris Aristotle AM, Director of the Victorian
Foundation for Survivors of Torture, advisor
to Australian governments and the UN High
Commission for Refugees.
The Victorian Foundation for Survivors of
Torture (and associated war-related trauma) has
a mission to help refugee re-settlers in Melbourne
access the personal and material resources that will
enable them to overcome the impact of war, torture
or trauma in their lives, and become fully engaged
with their new communities.
“We were told that traditional counselling
services were not seen to be entirely successful in
supporting these young Africans, and it became
clear that these energetic young people perhaps
required a more active and participatory creative
program,” Ms Clark explained .
“The arts allow a range of creative expressions
and, through working together actively and
supportively, we are witnessing the development of
trusting and productive relationships.”
“As the young Africans sing, dance and make
music together, they find an outlet for sharing their
stories, and a means to heal as they express the
full range of emotions – from fear, grief, guilt and
confusion, to joy and hopefulness.”
According to Ms Clark, the significance of
remaking and sharing of ‘story’ within a safe
environment is also increasingly recognised within
the fields of community development, community
psychology and resettlement.
“Skillfully applied, storytelling can be a powerful
tool in aiding recovery from the trauma, dislocation
and fragmentation many refugees experience,” she said.
The program’s interrelated aims of re-settlement,
community development and artistic development
are being supported through a highly-experienced
and multi-skilled project team.
The team is working with the project leaders –
Sue Clark and Horn of Africa elders Melika Yassin
Sheikh-Eldin and Burhan Nur from the Horn of
Africa Community Network - to ensure that there
is an integrated approach which weaves these aims
together through
all aspects of the project’s
development, documentation, evaluation and
overall management.
The organisers have made a commitment to
stay with this program for at least five years. Based
on the expressed priorities of the young people and
leaders from the Horn of Africa, the next step after
the workshop program is to establish theatre and
music troupes.
These troupes will be developed as a community
enterprise, performing and conducting workshops
in schools and community organisations as a means
to celebrate African culture, and contribute to crosscultural awareness while also offering employment
opportunities to young artists and organisers from
the Horn of Africa.
Workshops leader Shahin Shafaei is one of
the key members of the project team. As a refugee
himself, he has a profound understanding of many
of the issues facing young people from refugee
backgrounds.
Mr Shafaei’s skills and experience as a writer,
theatre-maker, film-maker and recent CCD Masters
Graduate have given him a unique approach to
developing creative and communicative responses
to the refugee experience. He brings these skills
to his role as artistic director in the next stage of
developing the theatre and music troupes.
Originating from Iran, Mr Shafaei has been in
Australia since his arrival as an asylum seeker in
2000. He established a national reputation with
his one-man show Refugitive which he toured and
performed across Australia in 2002, following his
release from detention. He also appeared in Through
The Wire 2005 in which his own story was portrayed.
The ‘Horn of Africa Arts Partnership Program’
will be documented and evaluated by the project
team, with input from participants, and community
elders, and it is hoped that after five years an effective
model will be established that will allow this unique
community and cultural program to be adapted to
the needs and aspirations of other refugee groups. ■
Victorian College of the Arts:
www.vca.unimelb.edu.au
PAGE
25
| Project Grant.
of Africa arts partnership
program rehearse at the
Victorian College of Arts.
Growing closer
ties with Birchip
By Nerissa Hannink
� Th
e Birchip region’s
cropping future is in
safe hands.
PAGE
26
E
very day farmers observe changes
and the impact that different factors
exert on plants, animals and our
environment.
This vast practical knowledge is being put to
use for the benefit of the wider community by the
Birchip Cropping Group (BCG) in Victoria’s northwest, which is working with scientists in order to
focus research projects.
The group investigates the critical factors that
ensure sustainable and profitable crop production
systems. Research is focused on agronomy and
covers applied research on all major crops grown
in the Birchip region including cereals, pulses and
oilseeds.
Now in his 36th year of farming, Ian McClelland
established BCG with fellow farmers from the
Mallee and Wimmera communities more than a
decade ago.
“In 1992 we were frustrated with the existing
levels of research being conducted in the region
surrounding Birchip, and thought that scientists
needed to interact more with farmers in order to
solve real problems,” Mr McClelland said.
“A group of us got together and ran a series of
herbicide demonstrations in our own fields, and
BCG grew from there.”
Having already established relationships with
universities in South Australia, Mr McClelland
noted that there were no formal ties with his alma
mater, the University of Melbourne where he had
completed his Bachelor of Agriculture.
He and Dr Michael Dalling, also from BCG,
approached Professor Rick Roush, the University’s
Dean of Land and Food Resources, about an
exchange of ideas.
“We had been thinking about developing a
relationship for years,” Mr McClelland said.
“We knew of Rick Roush’s leading work in weed
management, and when he took on the role of Dean
at the University we approached him about working
together.”
Professor Roush added: “It was just an accident of
history that we have not previously had a relationship,
and we’re delighted with the partnership.”
“The Birchip group is very well known. I have
followed their work and they are probably the
leading farmer-driven knowledge transfer group in
Australia, and serve as a model for other groups.”
The BCG is the first of its kind in Australia, being
entirely farmer-owned. Its philosophy is ‘a melting
pot of ideas to solve common problems to benefit
everyone’.
Members run field trials which demonstrate and
develop better farming practices and technology
for the main soil types in the Wimmera and Mallee
regions, primarily on the Culgoa, Hopetoun and
Tyrell Land Systems.
The results are then distributed to farmers and the
agricultural community, with the aim of improving
productivity, profit and long-term viability.
The BCG’s definitive publication has been a
manual of field trial results which is distributed free
to 6000 farmers in four states. Each year the group
spends $2.5m on research and extension.
“We want to get involved with a research and
knowledge transfer focus,” Professor Roush said.
“Growers often know things that we don’t. They
see the problems and what will work in the field, so we
can assist them with the basic understanding of what
underpins these observations and the background
literature with what has already been trialled.”
“The role of the scientist can be two-fold: to
bring to attention studies in scientific literature that
they (farmers) would not normally access, and to
help with experimental design, and suggest and
emphasise ideas for long-term research progress.”
“What we get from the growers is a tighter focus on
key problems and a reality check on what can work.”
“The problem with research is often that we have
a tightly-defined question, being 80 per cent sure
of an answer to a specific question is often much
more useful than having a specific answer to a vague
question.”
“So it’s highly beneficial for researchers to
interact with growers to focus the question.”
The BCG has conducted in excess of $4.2million
worth of agronomic research in the Wimmera
and Mallee region since 1993, and it has recently
finished construction of a $750,000 research facility.
There are currently more than 100 different
research trials being conducted near Birchip (located
between Bendigo and Mildura), including studies
on pesticides, fertilisers and plant nutrition with the
emphasis on the independence of the research.
More recent work has focused on the
development of agronomic packages to address
particular issues such as grain quality. The BCG
attracts in excess of 3500 visitors per year to its
demonstrations and extension events.
These events help to promote regional and rural
Australia and increase employment in small towns.
They also promote agriculture as an innovative and
exciting industry.
“We may not have all the knowledge, but
we know what the issues and problems are. The
interaction helps because when you don’t know
what work is being done and for what reason, you
are less likely to accept the outcome and advice,”
Mr McClelland said.
“We’d like to see all agricultural schools
communicate with farmers.”
Professor Roush added “During the partnership
we plan to have an exchange of talks on canola
cropping, change management in farming systems,
genetically-modified (GM) crops in Australia,
and implications of climate change and water
management.”
“We also aim to have students from the Land
and Food Resources Faculty go up to the Birchip site
for research.”
“I’m most looking forward to a sharp interchange
of ideas. We need to address what the challenges
are for Birchip in the future, what are the challenges
for agriculture and land management, and how to
address them.”
“We really want to brainstorm the big challenges
ahead, not just agriculture in the narrow sense but
rural viability and resource sustainability.” ■
Birchip Cropping Group: www.bcg.org.au
Faculty of Land and Food Resources:
www.landfood.unimelb.edu.au
PAGE
27
| Project Grant.
The image of the hard-working Australian farmer is a familiar one.
A tanned face and weathered hands toiling in a vast field of wheat has
featured in many of our advertising and tourism campaigns. But the
role of the farmer is broadening, and the men and women of the land
are increasingly discarding their Driza-Bones to don laboratory coats.
Museum program helps
rebuild fledgling nation
By Maryrose Cuskelly
| Project Grant.
I
n the aftermath of the Indonesian Army’s
rampage following the 1999 referendum
on independence, Timor-Leste’s museum
- like much of Dili - was all-but destroyed.
The sacked building was co-opted by the United
Nations as a hospital, and it was from the courtyard
of this makeshift medical centre that a team of East
Timorese, including curator/conservator Virgilio
Simith, and staff from the Museum and Art Gallery
of the Northern Territory, rescued the remnants of
the museum’s collection.
They placed the depleted assemblage of wooden
and ceramic objects in the abandoned Kopassus
(Indonesian Special Forces) headquarters for safekeeping. The Jakarta office of the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation
(UNESCO) then undertook to support TimorLeste’s quest to deal with the daunting question of how
to ensure both the preservation of the objects and the
establishment of a national museum for Timor-Leste.
To achieve that goal, expertise was enlisted from
The University of Melbourne’s Centre for Cultural
Materials Conservation which had built a profile
in Asia through its work with Singapore’s National
Heritage Board, the National Art Gallery of
Malaysia, the National Gallery of Bangkok and the
Vargas Museum at the University of the Philippines.
It was this reputation for expertise and legitimacy
that led UNESCO Jakarta to contact the Centre’s
director, Associate Professor Robyn Sloggett, to
advise and train museum staff on the conservation of
the objects found in the Dili courtyard.
Once the physical integrity of the objects had
been secured, the question of how to re-build an
institution of such national cultural significance from
these salvaged remnants became more pressing.
According to Ms Himalchuli Gurung, program
specialist for the Culture Sector of UNESCO
Jakarta, it was the combination of skills and
experience possessed by Associate Professor
Sloggett, and the fact that a working relationship had
been established between the parties, that prompted
UNESCO Jakarta to invite the Centre to become a
partner in the Museum to Museum Program.
Crucially, Professor Sloggett also possessed an
understanding of, and a belief in, the potential for the
PAGE
28
development of a museum in Timor-Leste.
In 2005 staff in the Timor-Leste Government’s
Division of Culture (working on a strategic plan for
the development of a national museum with Robyn
Sloggett and UNESCO Jakarta) identified the
importance of a website to further that development.
Now staff at the University's Centre are working
in collaboration with staff from the Ministry’s
Division of Culture to build that website.
According to Associate Professor Sloggett, there
are a range of functions that the website will be able to
provide, many of which would have been unthinkable
even as recently as two or three years ago.
“The website’s function is really to try and achieve
two things: to get a profile for the [Museum to
Museum] Program but, more importantly, to act as
a conduit for information about what’s happening in
the Ministry (of Education and Culture),” she said.
Eventually, it is envisaged that the website could
operate as a virtual museum with users being able
to access images and information on the museum’s
collection, as well as digital images and recordings
featuring song and dance.
Museum staff will also be able to use the material
from the website, in hardcopy or on CD, when they
travel to regional districts in Timor-Leste to run
information programs.
In the meantime, the website will be used as an
important tool for training, education, management
and the repatriation of East Timorese cultural
material, and will provide a forum for engagement
between staff and students of the Université de
Paz in Dili and the University of Melbourne. It will
also create links and exchanges between people in
the field in Timor-Leste and their counterparts in
Australia.
Through her involvement, Himalchuli Gurung
has witnessed the expanding interest in the Museum
to Museum Program among officials within
Timor-Leste’s Division of Culture. This awareness
has grown to the extent that the Government of
Timor-Leste has now taken up the initiative in the
development of the museum.
She also sees the potential for the information
available through the website to encourage other
international partners to participate in the Museum
to Museum Program.
The benefits of the Program are two-way and
include adding to the University’s skills base,
international profile and networks. The consultancy
work that the Centre does for UNESCO Jakarta also
brings a financial return to the University.
However, it is the opportunities made available
to her students through the Centre’s East Timor
contacts where Professor Sloggett sees the most
profound impact.
“It brings a real richness to their experience, for
our students, conservators are the professionals
who are the designated preservers of culture in our
society,” she said.
“If you look at East Timor, the people who were
doing it were the FALINTIL [the military wing
of the FRETILIN political party] or the women
keeping the tais [traditional cloth] weaving going,
even when the looms were being destroyed by the
Indonesians.”
“The Eurocentric idea of how you preserve
culture and particularly how you preserve one object
really gets knocked apart when you hear stories from
people who have preserved their cultural identity
through that kind of tyranny and dislocation.”
It’s the development of this sense of local cultural
literacy, in Professor Sloggett’s opinion, that is
crucial for her students.
“They don’t get this going down to the National
Gallery of Victoria and looking at a Guggenheim
show, they get it from trying to grapple with what’s
happened in our part of the world,” she said.
But even more important is the continued
existence of a Timor-Leste national museum.
As Faustino dos Santos from the Division of
Culture noted: “Timor-Leste is the newest nation
in the world and it is very important that in five to
10 years we build our museum to show our identity
to the East Timorese people and to other countries.” ■
w Further information:
Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation:
www.culturalconservation.unimelb.edu.au
UNESCO: www.unesco.org
Government of Timor-Leste:
www.timor-leste.gov.tl
Mentoring program to get
science buzzing in schools
T
oday’s prop on Phil Batterham’s
desk is a small plastic container
in which blowf lies systematically
devour minute scraps of f lesh.
The feast put on for the blowflies is part of a study
of the effect of insecticides in curbing this threat
to the nation’s livestock industry. Just 24 hours
earlier, the flies had been the stars of the commercial
childrens’ television science program, SCOPE.
For Associate Professor Batterham (Associate
Dean with responsibility for Community
Engagement and Development in the University’s
Science Faculty), the future of science depends on
quality communication.
Earlier this year, he provided ‘edu-tainment’
for nearly 500 science journalists and writers from
around the world. But right now his attention is on
the grass roots.
The Science Faculty has developed a ‘Science in
Schools’ mentoring program which will place thirdyear Bachelor of Science undergraduate students in
secondary school classrooms.
Associate Professor Batterham’s office may be in
the state-of-the-art Bio21 building in the University
of Melbourne’s world-renowned Parkville biomedicine precinct, but he knows that it’s out in the
school classrooms of the suburbs and country towns
where the next generation of researchers is already
thinking their way towards a career in science.
And he’s not happy at the lack of recognition
those charged with the responsibility of nurturing
the nation’s future receive.
“I don’t think the community values school
teachers and the contribution they make to our
society enough,” he said.
“The result of this indifference means there has
been a diminishing number of people with scientific
backgrounds choosing teaching as a profession.”
“I think it’s time we rolled up our shirtsleeves
and just got in and assisted, because the teaching
of science, and teaching itself, is a challenging,
fundamental endeavour for our society.”
Practical knowledge transfer is the missing
ingredient, Associate Professor Batterham claimed.
“Teachers are not well served with professional
development opportunities, and it is increasingly
difficult for teachers to keep up with the latest in
science, so our initiative is to put science students into
the classroom – not as teachers, or not as teachers in
training, but as science communicators,” he said.
The current pilot program will evolve by 2010
into a subject in Science Communications in which
third-year students will be offered various practical
opportunities.
One cohort will be offered the chance to go
out into primary and secondary schools as science
communicators. Others will be involved as science
writers on in-house publications or in web-based
communication, or direct face-to-face community
engagement in public spaces as diverse as the Royal
Melbourne Show and night markets.
“Students taking those different practical
options will be supported, so that those going out
into schools will receive mentoring support and
their activities will be overseen by the University,”
Associate Professor Batterham said.
“I think our students clearly have a good
education in science and they can pass on some of
their knowledge. But perhaps more importantly,
because they are reasonably close to the age of the
students with whom they will be engaging, they will
be role models.”
“Their passion for science could become a potent
influence in terms of the study paths the students
choose and ultimately the career path they follow.”
“The students will also provide a link back to the
University and its resource base.”
“The third-year students engaged in this program
will have a lot of science under their belts. So they will
be capable of sharing knowledge and resources from
the University and that will be very helpful to teachers.
“There is bi-lateral exchange – a ‘to-ing and fro-ing’
between the University and schools.”
Tony Cook, general manager of the Victorian
Department of Education and Early Childhood
Development’s Education Policy and Research
� U ndergraduate student
John Liddicoat with a
group of school students
from the Darebin cluster
in a University science
laboratory.
Division, said the program provided a “significant
science-based knowledge transfer opportunity for
schools.”
“The undergraduate students will benefit from
working side-by-side in school classrooms with
teachers and young people, therefore broadening
their horizons,” Mr Cook said.
“School students will benefit from having science
undergraduates as role models, and teachers will be
able to provide more depth and current knowledge
about science in their teaching programs.”
Soula Bennett, Head of Middle Years Education
at Northcote Secondary College in Melbourne’s
inner-north, said the ‘Science in Schools’ program
addressed one of the key challenges facing science
educators which was how to enable students to
connect with science beyond the classroom.
“It is an exciting initiative that provides an
avenue for knowledge transfer to occur in a nonthreatening way to both primary and secondary
students, with the mentors sharing their journey and
providing a connection between the science learned
in the classroom with that of the ‘real world’,” Ms
Bennett said.
“We are currently facing a decline in the
numbers of students continuing on with science
(physical or enabling sciences in particular) and I
see this program as one of many approaches that
schools can adopt to address this concern.”
Associate Professor Batterham sees the
University’s initiative as critical in supporting the
teaching of science.
“If some of our best and brightest students see
teaching as an attractive career path then that would
be a wonderful by-product,” he said.
“But this program is really designed to bring
some passion and talent to science in the classroom,
and support what teachers are doing. It’s not to
replace them, but to support them.” ■
Science Faculty home page:
www.science.unimelb.edu.au
PAGE
29
| Project Grant.
By Shane Cahill
Business at
Melbourne
PAGE
30
To license or invest in Intellectual Property
developed through University research
For research services, including
collaboration on research projects and
information on research grants
Melbourne Ventures Pty Ltd is the technology
commercialisation company for the University of
Melbourne and evaluates, markets and licenses
technology owned by the University.
It creates commercial pathways for technologies
that arise from the University’s broad research
endeavours, and enables the business community
to create commercial value by leveraging the
University’s world-class intellectual property.
Melbourne Ventures also facilitates licensing
and investment opportunities relating to specific
technologies.
The Research Office provides support to researchers
through identification of funding opportunities,
and assistance with the preparation and submission
of grant applications. A range of internal grants
are also available through the Office to encourage
researchers to establish collaborative research links
with external organisations. In conjunction with
the University's Legal Office, the Research Office
also manages all research agreement negotiations
with external research clients, and provides
advice of policies and procedures to facilitate such
interactions.
Case Study
Melbourne Ventures has supported the formation
and operations of Hatchtech, a Melbourne
University spin-off company that has developed a
new treatment for human head lice. The technology
was developed at the University’s Centre for Animal
Biotechnology and the project received pre-seed
funding from the University's venture fund,
Uniseed. The company has subsequently raised
additional funds from external investors.
Hatchtech’s Chief Scientific Officer, Dr Vern
Bowles, worked with Melbourne Ventures to
develop the technical and commercial potential of
the technology. The novelty and effectiveness of the
technology, the market size, and the short lead-time
required to get the product to the shelves ensured
significant funding was attracted from leading
investors.
Case Study
The Research Office has undertaken a detailed
analysis of the University's participation in the
Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage
Project scheme over the period 2002-2007.
Information on success rates, partner
organisations, and cash contributions from the
ARC and partner organisations has been provided
to University faculties with a view to identifying
potential partners for future projects, as well as
performance trends across departments within
the same faculty. Information sessions presented
by researchers with successful track records in the
Linkage scheme have also been held to assist current
applicants, and to encourage potential applicants to
apply for ARC grants.
In a separate project, unsuccessful Linkage
Grant applications were reviewed to identify areas
that were well compiled and those that required
improvement.
To license curriculum or software
For consulting or technical services
For customised technical and professional
education and training
The commercial distribution of the University of
Melbourne’s courseware and specialised application
software is managed by Curriculum Licensing
Services. This includes the licensing of software to
institutions, as well as the sale and distribution of
CD-ROMs and DVDs to individuals.
All courseware and multimedia products
are tried and tested to ensure sound educational
outcomes. Current CLS clients include Australian
and International higher education institutions, as
well as a range of government departments.
The School of Enterprise, a commercial business
of the University of Melbourne, provides
organisations with access to expert consultants
from the University who are leaders in innovation
and development. Those experts provide clients
with tailored solutions, including specialist advice,
program evaluations, feasibility studies and expert
witness opinion. High quality testing and analysis
services which utilise the University’s specialist
facilities and equipment are also available.
The School of Enterprise’s commercial
operating environment provides corporate agility
and responsiveness to meet clients’ specific needs.
The School provides commercially responsive
contractual and project management services to
ensure efficient, high-quality project delivery.
The School of Enterprise provides a key means by
which industry and government can efficiently
access the extensive intellectual, professional and
physical resources of the University to provide
customised professional and technical courses, in a
diverse range of disciplines.
The School of Enterprise team has a range
of experience including training needs analysis,
accreditation processes and policies, business
development, client partnering, contract negotiation
and management, specialist tertiary administration,
project management and commercialisation.
It is also able to contract academic expertise as
required to design and deliver award and non-award
programs.
Case Study
Curriculum Licensing Services profiles educational
courseware and specialised application software
which the University is able to make available to the
broader community under licensing arrangements.
The University of Melbourne produces
innovative multimedia teaching packages and
tutorial programs across a range of disciplines.
The University can also partner third parties to
customise programs to deliver specific curriculum
solutions.
As an example, Going to Hospital is an
interactive book and CD-ROM package designed
to help children and parents overcome the fear
and anxiety associated with a stay in hospital.
A collaboration between the Royal Children's
Hospital and the University of Melbourne, Going to
Hospital provides practical advice and coping skills
to help manage difficult situations that arise from
hospital visits.
Case study
The School of Enterprise in conjunction with
the School of Nursing successfully tendered for
a national evaluation and review of the Triage
Education Resource Book which was introduced
by the Commonwealth Department Health and
Ageing in 2002 to improve the consistency of triage
nursing.
In doing so, the School of Enterprise:
• Identified the tender opportunity and sourced
the relevant academic expertise within the
University.
• Co-ordinated academic response to the tender
including document formatting, copying and a
formal submission.
• Negotiated the contract with the Commonwealth
Department of Health and Ageing
• Subcontracted all academic experts
• Managed finances including payment of focus
group participants
• Monitored milestones, and formatted and
lodged the final report
Case Study
The School of Enterprise was approached by the
Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE (NMIT)
which sought a specialist training program for its
senior management team.
The program participants faced performance
management issues, such as how to grow the faculty
business while retaining and motivating an ageing
teaching force. This occurred at a time when it faced
difficulty in attracting new staff into TAFE teaching.
In order to achieve an appropriately senior
level of engagement, NMIT selected a unit from
the School of Enterprise’s Master of Enterprise
(Executive) curriculum which was customised
to meet the specific needs of NMIT’s senior
management.
The unit chosen was Behaviour and Leadership
in Organisations, one of eight that made up the
complete Masters program, and which focused
on the development of performance plans for
participants and their faculty staff.
PAGE
31
Knowledge transfer at the University of Melbourne. |
A major review of the University of Melbourne’s commercialisation activities conducted in 2006
resulted in changes to the way it engages with the business community. As a result, there is now an
easier way for business needs to be met by the University.
The internet portal www.business.unimelb.edu.au allows potential business partners to target
their enquiries depending on their specific needs, and helps them arrange engagement with
University researchers, access independent experts, make use of the University’s specialist
facilities and equipment and collaborate on research projects.
Through the one-stop website, potential business partners can be directed to the appropriate
University personnel by selecting from topic headings that best fit their enquiry. For example:
The body and soul of the
University’s cultural life
Cultural Collections:
www.unimelb.edu.au/culturalcollections
Grainger Museum:
www.lib.unimelb.edu.au/collections/grainger
S
o intent was Percy Grainger on
documenting every aspect of his
remarkable life for the benefit of
future scholars that the virtuoso,
inventor and social commentator actually
donated himself to the University of Melbourne.
“I give and bequeath my skeleton to the
University of Melbourne … for preservation and
possible display in the Grainger Museum,” Grainger
wrote in his last will and testament, 18 months prior
to his death in 1961 aged 78.
Grainger, best known as a pianist and composer
who also designed flamboyant outfits and wrote
experimental free music, was an obsessive autoarchivist whose diverse interests and influences are
reflected in his collection of more than 100,000 items.
With the purpose-built Grainger Museum on the
University’s Parkville campus currently undergoing
major maintenance, significant elements of the huge
Grainger collection are being displayed at the Ian
Potter Museum of Art until February, 2008.
The display – Facing Percy Grainger – is adapted
from the hugely-successful exhibition of the same
name which drew larger-than-anticipated crowds to
the National Library of Australia in Canberra when
staged last year.
“This is a unique collection of any sort worldwide
because it is an autobiographical museum collection
established by one man with the one aim,” said Brian
Allison, co-curator of the University’s Grainger
Museum and joint curator (with Astrid Britt
Krautschneider) of Facing Percy Grainger.
“The fact remains that Percy Grainger’s
influence has been largely overlooked, possibly due
to Australia’s concern with the tall poppy syndrome,
even though his collection has been housed in a
museum on the University campus since the 1930s.”
“By holding the Facing Percy Grainger exhibition
in the Ian Potter Museum, the main exhibition
venue on the campus, the University has shown a
PAGE
32
big vote of confidence in the appeal of the Grainger
collection.”
Among the exhibition items that provide an
insight into the eclectic life of one of Australia’s most
unique artistic talents is an experimental towelling
suit that Grainger designed in the 1930s, and a DuoArt reproducing piano which employs a piano roll to
host a ghostly recreation of Grainger’s radical recital
technique at the keyboard.
“That plays periodically during the exhibition,
and is effectively Percy Grainger himself playing his
own compositions,” Mr Allison said.
The Grainger Museum has been described
as ‘the most important musical site in Australia’
and is host to one of the more than 30 important
cultural collections owned and administered by the
University of Melbourne.
While the Ian Potter Museum of Art and the
Baillieu Library’s special collections are among
the most widely known beyond the campus,
the University also houses a remarkable array of
material that carries historic, social, scientific or
aesthetic appeal.
They include the Department of Medicine,
Dentistry and Health Sciences’ fascinating Medical
History Museum as well as its Bionic Ear archive,
the Science Faculty’s exhaustive herbarium and
the Music Faculty’s collection of rare and historic
instruments.
Michael Piggott, manager of the Cultural
Collections Group and University Archivist, said
the collections represented an embodiment of
many of the University’s academic disciplines which
played a significant role both inside and outside of
the institution.
“Regardless of how they came to be here at the
University, we have a public resource that we can
share to provide benefits for the community as
well as yield ongoing benefits for the University’s
teaching and research,” Mr Piggott said.
As Vice-Chancellor Professor Glyn Davis
noted recently, collections such as that belonging
to the Grainger Museum play an integral part in the
transfer of knowledge between the campus and the
community.
“By their very nature, universities are about
much more than discovering and imparting
knowledge,” Professor Davis said.
“They naturally lend themselves to a two-way
transfer of knowledge through their external
engagement with government, industry and the
community.”
The contribution that the University makes to
the community through its cultural collections and
programs is as diverse as campus life itself.
It can take the form of exhibitions of
its collections, galleries and museums, and
performances by the Melbourne Theatre Company
and University performers, dancers and musicians.
There are publications, lectures and short courses
on cultural subjects, and the range of literary titles
produced by Melbourne University Publishing.
In addition, there is an array of campus festivals,
prizes and awards, and the regular commissioning
of new works of art and music. All supplement the
more formal types of disciplinary discourse taught
in the University.
These activities not only enrich the students’
learning experience, they engage communities in
collective experiences, provide opportunities for
reflection and conversation on the age-old question
of ‘how we make our lives meaningful, our work
valuable and our values workable’.
Through its cultural resources, the University
is an owner, patron, and agent in cultural life. It
is also an educational institution responsible for
training and showcasing professional writers, visual
and performing artists, filmmakers and designers,
arts teachers, curators and administrators, and for
enlightening their audiences. ■
� A towelling suit designed
by Percy Grainger in the
1930s.
w w ww.sellersartprize.com.au
PAGE
33
Basil Sellers Art Prize
Australians are renowned for their reverential
enthusiasm for sport. Now, that devotion and
enjoyment is being captured by some of the
nation’s leading visual artists courtesy of one of
Australia’s richest art prizes.
The $100,000 Basil Sellers Art Prize was
launched by the Ian Potter Museum of Art at the
University of Melbourne this year to celebrate
the nexus between sport and culture.
The acquisitive prize will be awarded to a
single outstanding work of art on the theme of
sport. A total of 355 submissions were received
when entries were invited, from which a shortlist
of 16 has been chosen. The final judging will take
place at the Potter Museum in July, 2008 where
the short-listed works will be exhibited.
Visitors to the exhibition will vote for an
additional award: the $5,000 People’s Choice
prize.
The Prize has been initiated and underwritten
by Basil Sellers, a businessman, art enthusiast
and unabashed sports fan whose aim is to change
some of Australia’s prevailing perceptions
towards art and sport.
“My hope is that this prize will take lovers of
sport and art into what may be uncharted, but
ultimately rewarding, territory leading to an
engagement that will enhance their enjoyment
of each other’s loves,” Mr Sellers said.
The Potter Museum’s director, Dr Chris
McAuliffe, said that in deciding on a short list,
the judges had recognised entries that reflected
artistic ambition, technical innovation, visual
imagination and passion.
“Some of the work is based on acute or
quirky observations of the world of sport,”
Dr McAuliffe said.
“Other work uses sport to explore historical,
political and philosophical issues. And some
embraces the vivid spectacle of sporting
competition.”
“The Potter is a major national venue for
contemporary art exhibitions and my own
research has focused on the meeting of art and
sport.”
“The University has a remarkable sporting
history and academic staff are researching
everything from sports injuries to fan behaviour.
In this environment, there’s bound to be exciting
and challenging ideas in the exhibition.”
Further information on the Prize and the
short-listed artists is available at:
Goulburn Valley Partnership
Acknowledgement of the Shepparton-based Academy of Sport, Health and Education’s
(ASHE) significance to the Goulburn Valley region extends well beyond those indigenous
students who the Academy helps reach their educational and vocational potential.
ASHE’S importance to the rural area was
highlighted this year when its director, Justin
Mohamed, won a prestigious Wurreker Award from
the Victorian Aboriginal Education Association
Incorporated as 2007’s best community-based
employee.
In addition, the Wilin Centre (located in the
University’s Victorian College of the Arts) received
a Wurreker Award for the development and delivery
of innovative tertiary education programs for the
benefit of indigenous people. The Centre works
closely with ASHE to produce extra-curricular
activities which connect indigenous students to the
Goulburn Valley community.
The Wurreker Awards, which recognise
individuals and organisations who achieve
exceptional results in their chosen areas of
knowledge and expertise, add to an impressive list
of achievements compiled by ASHE which plays a
leading organisational role in numerous cultural
and sporting events such as the indigenous Croc
Festival and the Victorian Aboriginal Youth Sports
and Recreation carnival.
The Academy is the product of a unique
partnership between the University of Melbourne
and the indigenous community through
Shepparton’s Rumbalara Football and Netball Club.
“ASHE uses participation in sport to gain the
interest and confidence of indigenous people to
undertake education and training within a trusted,
culturally-appropriate environment,” Mr Mohamed
said.
ASHE is not exclusively for the benefit of
indigenous people, nor is it only a sporting academy.
It forms part of the University’s Goulburn Valley
partnership which was established to forge closer
and stronger ties with regional Victoria and to
provide support for regional and rural development.
The Goulburn Valley initiative also includes
the University’s Dookie campus (established in
1886) which provides higher education in the
areas of agriculture, rural business and natural
resource management. The campus incorporates a
2440-hectare commercial farm and 20 hectares of
orchards and vineyards.
Dookie hosts the University’s Centre for Water
and Landscape Management which is examining
solutions that allow for more sustainable water and
PAGE
34
landscape use in order to support greater economic
growth in regional Australia.
It also houses a number of innovative ongoing
collaborative research projects which feature:
• Programs to improve agricultural production
systems in conjunction with government agencies
• Strong community connections and liaison with
groups working in crucial areas of landscape
management and enterprise
• Implementation of short courses and field days
which incorporate other tertiary institutions and
industry groups
The campus is also pioneering an invaluable
resource tool, ‘The Dookie Demonstrator’, which
will provide long-term data on the relationships
between climate, resource use, production and
the environment by revealing new landscape
management options, the inter-relationships of
systems and the value of real-time information.
The project will also lead to the establishment of
demonstration sites for a range of agricultural land
uses, and develop landscapes that employ state-ofthe-art technologies and practices.
With ongoing drought and financial hardship
discouraging potential farmers from pursuing a life
on the land, the University is looking to the benefits
of knowledge and innovation to improve the image
of agriculture as a career.
Roger Wrigley, a senior lecturer at Dookie’s School
of Agriculture and Food Systems, said: “Currently
there is an image which makes it very hard to convince
people to pursue a career in farming. Our challenge is
to re-define that image and rebuild that confidence.”
“The average age of farmers in Victoria at the
moment is 55 to 60.”
“The only way we can encourage people on to the
land, or for those already there to stay on the land,
is by providing more knowledge. That way we can
ascertain what we need to grow, and then integrate
that information along with other practice changes.”
Since 2002 Shepparton has also hosted the
University’s School of Rural Health which provides
high-quality health and allied health education,
support and research facilities to the community,
indigenous groups and other hospitals in regional
Victoria. In 2007, the School has hosted over 600
health professions, students and supported several
hundred placements in the region.
A majority of the School’s funding is provided
by the Commonwealth Department of Health and
Ageing through programs aimed at establishing
a rural-focused national network of training for
medical and health industry professionals.
Professor Dawn DeWitt, Head of the School, is
enthusiastic about the knowledge transfer activities
the School brings to the area.
“The School provides expertise for local and
regional health initiatives and our knowledge
transfer activities include everything from health to
leadership,” Professor De Witt said.
“Over the next few years we will be refining a
clinical-education business model as well. All these
activities enrich the region via knowledge transfer.”
Among the community-based initiatives
being undertaken at the School is the Rural Health
Academics Network (RHAN) project in which
University experts are employed jointly with local
health services to sharpen research focus on areas such
as asthma, diabetes and community-wide allergies.
The University of Melbourne also recently
joined forces with Monash University to launch the
Northern Victoria Regional Medical Education
Network, the aim of which is to produce a new
generation of doctors dedicated to rural and
regional Victoria.
It has been predicted that rural Victorian
communities will require an additional 300 doctors
by 2012, with the Goulburn Valley (along with the
Mallee region and Bendigo) identified as areas of
particular need.
The Goulburn Valley is not the only community
to benefit from other locally-inspired knowledge
transfer initiatives such as the development of the
innovative Big Book and accompanying interactive
CD-ROM entitled How the River Murray Was Made.
This interactive literacy resource, suitable for use
by children up to (and including) grade two, was
developed by the University’s Early Learning Centre.
The story is told by ‘Aunty’ Irene Thomas, a
Bangerang Elder who lives in Shepparton, and offers
the Indigenous dreamtime explanation for the
origins of the River Murray.
Upon its publication to coincide with NAIDOC
week in July2007, the Department of Human
Services funded the distribution of a copy of the
book to every kindergarten in Victoria. ■
The name of an ambition
John Armstrong is the University of Melbourne’s Knowledge Transfer Fellow. In this role he
is furthering the scholarship, intellectual leadership and understanding of knowledge transfer
by exploring the broader questions connected to this important policy area.
its own sake, is a sophisticated task.
In a civilised society – in the kind of society
we aspire to be – there is continuous mutual
engagement of theory and practice, and continuous
dialogue between research and public discourse;
between what is known or discussed in the academy,
and what is widely known and discussed.
We should pay attention to the ‘transfer’ in
knowledge transfer. This isn’t – and can’t be – a onesided process.
For a relationship to flourish both parties have to
be engaged. It’s worth considering why this is. The
deep reason is that academic disciplines are rational
reconstructions of complex parts of life.
We are moving away from the era of bureaucratic
knowledge – in which the goal was that designated
state-funded experts would organise information
on behalf of society. And we are moving into the
era of democratic knowledge, in which the success
of a society depends upon the distribution of
knowledge and intelligence – upon the general level
of imagination and intelligence in society.
Knowledge transfer identifies a range of
intellectual virtues - qualities of mind – which
higher education properly aims to instil and
cultivate in students.
In other words, knowledge transfer is not an
add-on; it is not an optional extra. It’s not something
you do – if you want to – once you’ve acquired
knowledge. It is, rather, the goal – the completion,
the point – of serious intellectual work. And in
an important way the intellectual vocation is
denatured if it does not aim in that direction, and it is
unfulfilled if it does not attain that goal.
As centres of teaching, great universities aim at
enabling their students to use their intelligence in
constructive and valuable ways.
A great university is a creative centre of
civilisation. That is the true standard by which
higher education institutions should be judged.
What we call knowledge transfer is a way of
embracing that noble vision. Such a university is a
place into which flows the vital currents of the life
of a society: problems, fears, aspirations, dreams
and passions – and from it flow solutions, guidance,
insight, encouragement and techniques.
But that flow can dry up or be diverted.
Knowledge transfer, properly understood, is
today’s necessary restatement of the traditional and
grand civilising mission of higher education. ■
www.knowledgetransfer.unimelb.edu.au
John Armstrong is Associate Professor of Philosophy
and Philosopher in Residence at the Melbourne Business
School.
PAGE
35
I
t is one of the minor tragedies of language
that words and phrases do not explain
themselves. And ‘knowledge transfer’
needs to be explained. What does it
mean? Why is it important?
Knowledge transfer is the name of an ambition.
And it is an ambition which is crucially important
for our times; and not just for universities but for
modern civilisation.
Knowledge transfer is an umbrella term. It
draws attention to a range of issues that collectively
determine the quality of relationship between
thinking and life; between the academy and the
world. And it alerts academics to a fundamental
responsibility for the quality of that relationship.
At the core of every intellectual life is a basic
question – ‘Why is knowledge good?’ There is an
infinite amount that can be known. But what is
it important to know, and why? This question is
expansive. It takes the researcher or thinker beyond
the precise boundaries of a discipline and into a
conversation with society.
It is one thing for a researcher to study the art
of the Renaissance, but another to answer the even
more profound question: why is what happened in
Italy 500 years ago important now?
It is crucial to see that asking this further
question is not a falling away of intellectual
ambition; it is not a move from the hard questions
to the easy topics. That expansive question is the
completion, the fulfilment, of research: it is what
research is for.
There is a temptation to see knowledge transfer
primarily in the guise of applied intelligence. And that
is an important aspect. But even more significant, I
believe, is to see the way in which knowledge transfer
goes to the heart of what is thought to be its opposite knowledge for its own sake.
We say, traditionally, that academic life should
be motivated by a love of knowledge. But what is this
love? It is a sense of the significance, of the personal
and human import of ideas.
Knowledge transfer, in this respect, involves
cultivating that attachment: that sense of ideas
mattering. It isn’t opposed to ‘knowledge for its own
sake’. On the contrary, knowledge transfer is to do
with widening the constituency. But to do that, to
draw many more people into a love of knowledge for
Future Melbourne
The University of Melbourne continues to play a
significant role in ‘Future Melbourne’, the project
which will yield a 10-year strategic vision for the
growth and prosperity of Victoria’s capital city.
To produce its blueprint for Melbourne’s
development until 2020, the City of Melbourne has
enlisted the assistance of a number of partners to
provide expert input across a range of areas.
The initial phase of the five-stage project was
to identify the most significant issues and values
influencing the city, and the impact they will have on
Melbourne’s future.
More than 1000 people attended the 13 public
fora, seminars and events held at the University’s
PAGE
36
Parkville campus and elsewhere in the city during
the course of that first phase.
From the issues that were raised in phase one,
the University has nominated three key themes on
which it will concentrate its ongoing contribution
to ‘Future Melbourne’ until the project’s scheduled
completion in 2008.
These themes, which were identified as areas of
acute public interest during the ‘Issues’ phase, focus
on Melbourne’s development as:
A Medicine/Science City
A Cultural City
A Living City
Significant projects will be conducted by
University personnel on each of these themes, which
will address key issues such as Melbourne’s growing
reputation as a knowledge capital, its continuing
leadership in the areas of arts and culture and its
commitment to sustainable and environmentallyresponsible living.
In addition to reflecting the University’s
renowned research expertise, this themed
contribution will also be built on its independence
and integrity as an academic institution.
The ‘Future Melbourne’ project will be
completed when a draft ‘City Plan 2020’ is presented
to the Melbourne City Council by the City of
Melbourne in September, 2008.
All correspondence relating to the magazine should be directed to:
The Editors: Katharine Oliver and Andrew Ramsey
Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Innovation and Development)
The University of Melbourne
Victoria 3010
Ph: +61 3 8344 8847
Fax: +61 3 9341 6050
Email: [email protected]
Design, production: Darren Rath
Print co-ordination: Jim Rule
Writers: Shane Cahill, Maryrose Cuskelly, Nerissa Hannink, Andrew Ramsey,
Katherine Smith, Rebecca Scott, David Scott, Janine Sim-Jones, Amanda Tattam.
Views expressed by contributors are not necessarily endorsed by the University.
Further information about knowledge transfer at the University of Melbourne
is available at www.knowledgetransfer.unimelb.edu.au
PAGE
37
Knowledge Transfer – Connecting Melbourne 2007 edition
This magazine recognises and celebrates the diversity of knowledge transfer activities
which are ongoing at the University of Melbourne. Most of the case studies featured
were honoured in the Vice-Chancellor’s Knowledge Transfer Awards, which were
presented for the first time in 2007.
Published by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Innovation and Development) through:
The Marketing and Communications Division
Level 3, 780 Elizabeth Street
The University of Melbourne
Victoria 3010
ISSN 1835–405X

Knowledge Transfer Connecting Melbourne

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