Expectations and commitments in the Australia-USA alliance. This project aims to investigate the gap between the high expectations of mutual support and the lack of detailed security commitments in the Australia-US Alliance. The project intends to use a focused approach that captures thematic aspects of the alliance through project frames and historical slices across time. Expected outcomes can advance understanding of how alliances operate as security institutions. The outcomes can help to prom ....Expectations and commitments in the Australia-USA alliance. This project aims to investigate the gap between the high expectations of mutual support and the lack of detailed security commitments in the Australia-US Alliance. The project intends to use a focused approach that captures thematic aspects of the alliance through project frames and historical slices across time. Expected outcomes can advance understanding of how alliances operate as security institutions. The outcomes can help to promote a more informed national conversation about the costs and benefits of Australia's security relationship with the United States of America (USA) and contribute to debates over the future of the Australia-USA Alliance during a period of strategic uncertainty.Read moreRead less
Improving International Law Regulation of Maritime Autonomous Vessels . The use of maritime autonomous vessels (MAVs) is creating regulatory and enforcement opportunities and challenges under international law. The aim of this project is to fill a critical gap in current responses in international law in focusing on the challenges posed by MAVs to international maritime security law. MAVs are increasingly useful for states in peacetime military operations, in response to transnational crime, mar ....Improving International Law Regulation of Maritime Autonomous Vessels . The use of maritime autonomous vessels (MAVs) is creating regulatory and enforcement opportunities and challenges under international law. The aim of this project is to fill a critical gap in current responses in international law in focusing on the challenges posed by MAVs to international maritime security law. MAVs are increasingly useful for states in peacetime military operations, in response to transnational crime, maritime cybersecurity, and in promoting broader national security goals, but non-state actors may also use them for terrorist and transnational criminal activity. International law has not kept up with this technology so this project will redress that problem and propose law reform to enhance global maritime security.Read moreRead less
The Strategic Use of Election Violence. Roughly a quarter of national elections around the world are accompanied by the use of deadly violence. While the frequency of violence has remained almost constant for decades, researchers are only beginning to explore comparatively the myriad causes of election violence and what can be done to prevent it. Therefore, the proposed research focuses on answering two fundamental yet unanswered questions: why do various types of election violence occur, and wh ....The Strategic Use of Election Violence. Roughly a quarter of national elections around the world are accompanied by the use of deadly violence. While the frequency of violence has remained almost constant for decades, researchers are only beginning to explore comparatively the myriad causes of election violence and what can be done to prevent it. Therefore, the proposed research focuses on answering two fundamental yet unanswered questions: why do various types of election violence occur, and what interventions are most effective at preventing them? The research design centres on analysing data on specific election violence events (perpetrators, victims, and method) and data on election interventions to test hypotheses on underlying causes and effective interventions.Read moreRead less
Leveraging power and influence on the United Nations Security Council. This project examines the fundamental problem of how elected members on the Security Council can influence Council decision-making and norm development. Assembling a research team of international lawyers and political scientists, the project seeks to provide a rigorous, multi-disciplinary evaluation of why and when non-permanent Council members have succeeded in having impact on the Council's decision-making process. Drawing ....Leveraging power and influence on the United Nations Security Council. This project examines the fundamental problem of how elected members on the Security Council can influence Council decision-making and norm development. Assembling a research team of international lawyers and political scientists, the project seeks to provide a rigorous, multi-disciplinary evaluation of why and when non-permanent Council members have succeeded in having impact on the Council's decision-making process. Drawing on recent experiences of elected members, including Australia, the project is expected to advance evidence-based and empirically grounded policy proposals designed to increase the capacity of elected members to exercise power and influence over the Council's agenda and policy.Read moreRead less
Advancing Genocide Forecasting: New Definition, Methods, and Forecasts. The project intends to develop a new method of forecasting to improve the international community’s and Australia's ability to anticipate and prevent genocide. The project is designed to build on work in the Atrocity Forecasting Project since 2009, and to bring together political science and computer science. To address well-known problems the project plans to reconceptualise genocide as extreme targeted mass killing, increa ....Advancing Genocide Forecasting: New Definition, Methods, and Forecasts. The project intends to develop a new method of forecasting to improve the international community’s and Australia's ability to anticipate and prevent genocide. The project is designed to build on work in the Atrocity Forecasting Project since 2009, and to bring together political science and computer science. To address well-known problems the project plans to reconceptualise genocide as extreme targeted mass killing, increasing definitional clarity and data reliability. Combining a better concept with cutting-edge computer science forecasting approaches, the project aims to produce new annual forecasts, pushing accuracy further. Expected project outcomes will provide new understanding and a better tool for genocide prevention.Read moreRead less
North Korea's quiet transformation: women in the rise of the informal market. This project examines the role of women in the emergence of a market economy and also assesses the social, economic and political impact of the spread of market relations in North Korea.
Secure and Resistant Blockchain for Financial and Business Applications. The aim of this project is to develop a practical secure blockchain technology for the booming applications in finance and business. This project expects to address the leading security threats to the current blockchain applications. The expected outcome is an executable secure and resistant blockchain prototype through the integration of the latest developed and customized techniques. The success of the project will dramat ....Secure and Resistant Blockchain for Financial and Business Applications. The aim of this project is to develop a practical secure blockchain technology for the booming applications in finance and business. This project expects to address the leading security threats to the current blockchain applications. The expected outcome is an executable secure and resistant blockchain prototype through the integration of the latest developed and customized techniques. The success of the project will dramatically benefit Australian people and government, especially for the Australian ICT industry for commercializing the research outputs. Read moreRead less
Energy big data analytics from a cybersecurity perspective. This project aims to develop a framework on energy big data analytics from security and privacy perspectives. Unlike other big data analytics such as social network big data analytics, energy big data analytics involve research challenges on how to cope with real-time tight cyber-physical couplings, and security/safety of the smart grid system. This project will develop advanced data-driven algorithms that are capable of detecting coord ....Energy big data analytics from a cybersecurity perspective. This project aims to develop a framework on energy big data analytics from security and privacy perspectives. Unlike other big data analytics such as social network big data analytics, energy big data analytics involve research challenges on how to cope with real-time tight cyber-physical couplings, and security/safety of the smart grid system. This project will develop advanced data-driven algorithms that are capable of detecting coordinated cyber-attacks that will potentially lead to catastrophic cascaded failures; and develop new solutions in detecting the false data-injection attacks that are conventionally considered as unobservable. This project will provide the benefit of enhancing our national critical infrastructure's security.Read moreRead less
Privacy-preserving Biometrics based Authentication and Security. Password based authentication systems cannot verify genuine users. Biometric authentication can address this issue. However, the booming IoT applications and cloud computing require that the biometric authentication must be conducted in the privacy-protected setting in order to comply with privacy protection legal regulations. Latest reports show that current biometric authentication systems, under protected setting, exhibit poor ....Privacy-preserving Biometrics based Authentication and Security. Password based authentication systems cannot verify genuine users. Biometric authentication can address this issue. However, the booming IoT applications and cloud computing require that the biometric authentication must be conducted in the privacy-protected setting in order to comply with privacy protection legal regulations. Latest reports show that current biometric authentication systems, under protected setting, exhibit poor authentication performance, which is not commercially applicable. This project aims to investigate innovative solutions to this issue. The intended deliverables will include deep learning based biometric feature extractor, cancellable biometrics and cloud oriented biometrics security protocols. Read moreRead less
InterFET and East Timorese independence. InterFET was the first international military campaign led by Australia since WW2, and its largest deployment since Vietnam. It also marked a crucial moment in East Timor's transition to independence. Yet there is no significant scholarly research on the troops who served, nor has there been any substantive scholarly analysis of the InterFET deployment itself. The central aim of this project is thus to investigate the latter by means of the former. It aim ....InterFET and East Timorese independence. InterFET was the first international military campaign led by Australia since WW2, and its largest deployment since Vietnam. It also marked a crucial moment in East Timor's transition to independence. Yet there is no significant scholarly research on the troops who served, nor has there been any substantive scholarly analysis of the InterFET deployment itself. The central aim of this project is thus to investigate the latter by means of the former. It aims to provide a substantive scholarly analysis of InterFET primarily through means of an oral history of participants. The project endeavours to dramatically enhance Australian and international understanding of this seminal event and what it signified in military, political, social and personal terms.Read moreRead less