Professions Research

Professor Brian Dollery of the School of Business, Economics and Public Policy, and Director of the UNE Centre for Local Government, has passed the 300 mark in the number of papers he has published in refereed scholarly journals.
Professor Dollery said: ‘With 305 refereed papers not out under my belt, I have passed Don Bradman’s second highest score of 304 and the chase is now on to overtake his highest score of 334’.
‘Provided the wicket plays well and I can stay fast, fierce and focused, after that I will be aiming for Brian Lara’s 400’, Brian said.
‘In family terms, I passed England cricketer Tom Dollery’s highest test score of 37 way back in 1992 and Queenslander Keith Dollery’s highest Shield innings of 41 in 1993’, Brian observed.
‘Over the years, I have been very lucky to have had a succession of excellent batting partners, especially Joe ‘Thrasher’ Wallis, Andrew ‘Blocker’ Worthington and Lin ‘Flogger’ Crase’, he said.
On a personal level, Professor Dollery ascribed his research productivity to a carefully targeted regime of detoxification and rehabilitation, combined with early nights.
‘Big Dog’s injunction to go to bed at 7.00pm has been a wonderful boon to me’, Brian said.

The University of New England stands to benefit from the development of strategic relationships in the interna-tional arena, following the unqualified success of its International Health Conference held in Thailand this week. The International Conference on Health Service Delivery Management is a joint effort between UNE and Thailand’s Naresuan University, and has attracted more than 450 delegates from across three continents. The Vice-Chancellor and CEO of UNE, Professor Alan Pettigrew, in Thailand, said the conference had pulled together knowledge from the fields of health, medicine and education to address global issues in health service delivery. He said the conference had attracted considerable international interest from health practitioners, health providers, and educators from 16 countries including Australia, Sudan, Nepal, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Laos and Bhutan. “All of the international experts present are committed to improving health care and to learning from each other through research and education strategies,” Professor Pettigrew said. Professor Victor Minichiello, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean of UNE’s Faculty of The Professions, said that the strategic relationships developed between UNE and institutions such as Naresuan University and the World Health Organisation would provide benefits to the global community.

Women’s representation in leadership positions in agricultural industries and regional communities more generally was the focus of a report co-authored by Professor Alison Sheridan and her colleague from Curtin University of Technology, Professor Fiona Haslam McKenzie. The report identifies where women are located across occupations and industries in the Australian paid workforce and examines the reasons for women’s low representation in formal leadership positions in agriculture and regional organisations. It concludes with recommendations for improving the proportion of women in formal leadership roles and enhancing women’s leadership experiences. The report, ‘Revisiting Missed Opportunities – growing women’s contribution to agriculture’, was released by the Rural Industries Woman of the Year, 2009, Roma Britnell, in Canberra on 15 September, with the importance of the findings stressed by the Minister for Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry, the Hon Tony Burke, MP in his press release about the report.

Issues concerning the economics of invasive species (both animal and plant) have been addressed by two projects. A recent research report by Associate Professor Sinden and Dr Wendy Gong (BEPP), Dr Randall Jones of the NSW DPI, and Dr Mike Braysher of the University of Canberra, invasive animal pests cause economic losses of at least $744m each year in Australia. The $744m costs comprise $621m in damage to agriculture and $123m in expenditures on management, research and control. The Invasive Animals Co-operative Research Centre funded the study. The question of how to best address the problems of invasive species is the focus of other project. Deciding how money should be allocated within pest management programs is a tricky process. Associate Professor Oscar Cacho and Dr Susie Hester, agricultural and resource economists have received grants from the Australian Centre for Excellence in Risk Analysis (ACERA) and the Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) for this work. This research has led to productive partnerships with leading weed scientists, ecologists, economists, mathematicians and pest managers at Biosecurity Queensland, DAFF, The Univ of Queensland, Melbourne University, Monash and ANU. Oscar is also associated with the Australian Centre for Biosecurity and Environmental Economics at ANU. Susie is currently busy reviewing national and international research on post-border pest-surveillance techniques, which is part of a project with ACERA that aims to create an accessible summary of the available techniques, to assist biosecurity managers make decisions about resource allocation within pest-management programs.

The Governor of New South Wales, Her Excellency Marie Bashir AC, has recognised the University of New England’s School of Rural Medicine with an award for its research into rural mental healthcare. The award was presented to Professor Fiona Stewart on behalf of UNE’s School of Rural Medicine, and recognizes research into ways of supporting mental health practitioners, particularly those who work with children and adolescents in regional areas. Chancellor of the UNE, Dr Richard Torbay commended the research undertaken by Professor John Fraser and A/Prof. Christian Alexander . Professor Fraser said the research involved great deal of collaboration between UNE and rural GPs across rural NSW. Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean of UNE’s Faculty of The Professions, Professor Victor Minichiello said the award demonstrates the significant impact the newly established medical school is making in the field of rural healthcare.

An academic from UNE has won a highly competitive scholarship from the European Commission that will enable him to share ideas with researchers in Scandinavia. Dr Siri Gamage, a Senior Lecturer in UNE’s School of Education, is known internationally as an expert analyst of - and commentator on - ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka. He said that the Erasmus Mundus Scheme Scholarship would enable him to broaden his investigation of the human rights instruments available to ethnic minorities in nations around the world, and the conflicting claims of “national sovereignty” and the rights of minorities to “self-determination”. Dr Gamage’s scholarship will take him to the University of Tromso in Norway where he will be Visiting Scholar in the Department of Social Anthropology. He will go on to the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, where he will be a Visiting Scholar in the School of Global Studies. Dr Gamage’s paper “Economic liberalisation, changes in governance structure and ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka”, was published this year in the Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol. 39 (2). The Erasmus Mundus Scheme aims to enhance the quality of higher education within the European Union by encouraging dialogue between European academics and researchers and those from beyond Union.

The DEHub team have won a grant that will enable UNE to undertake an exchange with Latin American Colleagues around distance education in 2010, which will demonstrate how DEHub connects distinguished postgraduate students from Latin America, Dr Fredy-Roberto Valenzuela (BEPP: Translator) and Carina Bossu (PhD candidate) with our three sector partners.
Southern Skies Distance Education Academic Exchange $74,140. An academic exchange between four distance education universities in Australia and four distance education organisations in Latin America to share information, establish links between the two regions, develop a series of case studies and examples of best practice in distance education and build capacity in the participating institutions.
The Australian section of the exchange will take place in the four DEHub institutions in Australia (UNE, CQU, USQ and CSU). The Latin American section will take place in the University of Moron and the National Uni-versity of Quilmes in Argentina and the University of Sao Paulo and the Online-Distance Education Unit at Fundagao Getulio Varqas in Brazil. Contact Professor Belinda Tynan at: belinda.tynan@une.edu.au , or Dr Fredy Valenzuela at: fvalenz2@une.edu.au

An academic from the University of New England has won a highly competitive scholarship from the European Commission that will enable him to share ideas with researchers in Scandinavia.

Dr Siri Gamage, a Senior Lecturer in UNE’s School of Education, is known internationally as an expert analyst of - and commentator on - ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka. He said that the Erasmus Mundus Scheme Scholarship would enable him to broaden his investigation of the human rights instruments available to ethnic minorities in nations around the world, and the conflicting claims of “national sovereignty” and the rights of minorities to “self-determination”.

Next week, Dr Gamage’s scholarship will take him to the University of Tromso in Norway - the northernmost university in the world. There, as a Visiting Scholar, he will contribute - from the perspective of his own expertise and experience - to seminars and discussions with academics and postgraduate students in the university’s Department of Social Anthropology.

After six weeks in Tromso, he will go on to the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, where he will be hosted for six weeks as a Visiting Scholar by that university’s School of Global Studies.

Dr Gamage’s  paper “Economic liberalisation, changes in governance structure and ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka”, was published this year in the Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol. 39 (2). His most recent paper, “Can Sri Lanka achieve durable peace after the defeat of the Tamil Tigers?” has been accepted for publication by the Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict (Wisconsin Institute).

He said that - among other things - the  scholarship experience would be invaluable for him in his supervision of PhD students who are investigating issues surrounding the human rights of refugees and migrant workers, and in his coordination of a UNE course unit on social justice in education.

“Talking about human rights is not a revolutionary, radical activity,”  Dr Gamage said. “It’s part of being human.”

The Erasmus Mundus Scheme aims to enhance the quality of higher education within the European Union by encouraging dialogue between European academics and researchers and those from beyond Union.

Clicking on the image of refugee children displayed here reveals a photograph of Dr Siri Gamage.

Associate Professor Bob Boughton from the School of Education recently received an invitation from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, an agency of the Australian Government, to be an education specialist for AIHW’s newly established National Clearinghouse.

The role of the education specialist is to assist the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare by assessing the evidence contained in material to be held in the National Clearinghouse repository.

Associate Professor Lorraine Graham has received an invitation from Professor Penny Sackett, Chief Scientist of Australia, to join the Transforming Learning and the Transmission of Knowledge Expert Working Group. This working group, chaired by Professor Margaret Sheil, will report and make direct recommendations to the full membership of the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council (PMSEIC) on 3 December 2009.

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