Mapping the effect of social enterprise on regional city disadvantage. This project aims to explore how social enterprises affect wellbeing and community capacity in disadvantaged areas of regional cities. Governments increasingly invest in social enterprise to benefit individuals and places. This project will use a spatial methodology to map where and how benefits are realised. To date, robust evidence about how social enterprise affects disadvantage is lacking, partly due to inadequate researc ....Mapping the effect of social enterprise on regional city disadvantage. This project aims to explore how social enterprises affect wellbeing and community capacity in disadvantaged areas of regional cities. Governments increasingly invest in social enterprise to benefit individuals and places. This project will use a spatial methodology to map where and how benefits are realised. To date, robust evidence about how social enterprise affects disadvantage is lacking, partly due to inadequate research methodology. This project expects to provide web-based design tools and applications to assist regional city communities and councils in the development of social enterprises that can help disadvantaged people and places.Read moreRead less
Privatising neighbourhoods? Governance and social life in master-planned residential estates. Australian residential neighbourhoods are changing in the face of growing privatisation and privatism, with major implications for the strength of the social and economic fabric of cities. Master planned residential estates are emblematic of this change. This project empirically investigates the extent and nature of privatisation and privatism in these new residential environments. It will provide a rig ....Privatising neighbourhoods? Governance and social life in master-planned residential estates. Australian residential neighbourhoods are changing in the face of growing privatisation and privatism, with major implications for the strength of the social and economic fabric of cities. Master planned residential estates are emblematic of this change. This project empirically investigates the extent and nature of privatisation and privatism in these new residential environments. It will provide a rigorous analysis necessary to growing national debates about creating and sustaining urban social cohesion, and on the importance of social ties between people for producing a more prosperous Australia.Read moreRead less
Promoting active travel and public transport for a post-pandemic world. In many major cities, COVID-19 stimulated the provision of open streets, pop up bike lanes and widened pedestrian access, prompting unprecedented increases cycling and walking. While this type of infrastructure has always been supported by urban planners and designers, the pandemic has served as a vital inflection point, enabling cities to pursue long-term sustainable transport initiatives, including investment in Active Tra ....Promoting active travel and public transport for a post-pandemic world. In many major cities, COVID-19 stimulated the provision of open streets, pop up bike lanes and widened pedestrian access, prompting unprecedented increases cycling and walking. While this type of infrastructure has always been supported by urban planners and designers, the pandemic has served as a vital inflection point, enabling cities to pursue long-term sustainable transport initiatives, including investment in Active Travel (AT). There is an opportunity to promote AT as part of an integrated transport strategy, and to develop tools for the robust evaluation of AT impacts to inform future investment strategies. This proposal will provide our partner organisation Transport for New South Wales (with the knowledge required to achieve this.
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Sustainable fiscal federalism and reform of the GST distribution system. The primary source of funds for Australian States and Territories is GST revenue distributed by the Commonwealth using an equalisation formula that has proved to be politically unsustainable and in recent times manifestly inadequate to provide the revenue needed in response to crises and natural disasters. A tipping point has been reached and reform is urgently needed. Drawing on international experience with GST distributi ....Sustainable fiscal federalism and reform of the GST distribution system. The primary source of funds for Australian States and Territories is GST revenue distributed by the Commonwealth using an equalisation formula that has proved to be politically unsustainable and in recent times manifestly inadequate to provide the revenue needed in response to crises and natural disasters. A tipping point has been reached and reform is urgently needed. Drawing on international experience with GST distributions specifically and fiscal federalism more generally, the project aims to develop a reform blueprint for a sustainable and equitable fiscal federalism regime in Australia that best aligns with Australia’s current and long-term fiscal needs.Read moreRead less
Investigating the genetic basis for heterogeneous susceptibility of Tasmanian devils to a novel infectious cancer. This project will use genetics and modelling to reveal why Tasmanian devils in northwest Tasmania are not dying from facial tumour disease, a new, unusual infectious cancer threatening this iconic carnivore with extinction. This project will predict extinction risk, develop management options, and provide a new template for managing emerging wildlife diseases.
Plasticity and the origins of family. This project aims to answer the question of how family life evolved. Humans and many animals live in stable family groups because of the benefits of cooperation. Surprisingly, we have a very poor understanding of how family living initially evolved. This project will experimentally determine how simple responses to environmental change have driven the evolution of family living and thereby refine theories for understanding social evolution more generally. ....Plasticity and the origins of family. This project aims to answer the question of how family life evolved. Humans and many animals live in stable family groups because of the benefits of cooperation. Surprisingly, we have a very poor understanding of how family living initially evolved. This project will experimentally determine how simple responses to environmental change have driven the evolution of family living and thereby refine theories for understanding social evolution more generally. This information will be useful to environmental policy makers that need to consider the role of environmental change in managing and conserving viable populations.Read moreRead less
Working with wind energy and forestry for effective eagle conservation. This project aims to reduce the impacts of wind turbines and disturbance from forestry activity on the Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle. It will do this by understanding the flight behaviour, movements and mortality of eagles, and the behavioural responses of breeding birds to forestry-related disturbance. The project will build new knowledge and institutional partnerships that will be used to minimise impacts on the Tasmanian e ....Working with wind energy and forestry for effective eagle conservation. This project aims to reduce the impacts of wind turbines and disturbance from forestry activity on the Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle. It will do this by understanding the flight behaviour, movements and mortality of eagles, and the behavioural responses of breeding birds to forestry-related disturbance. The project will build new knowledge and institutional partnerships that will be used to minimise impacts on the Tasmanian eagle population, and develop models for use in planning. This will safeguard Australia's largest eagle and improve the sustainability of energy and forest industries. This research will also provide a model for the resolution of similar problems elsewhere in the world.Read moreRead less
Will genetic rescue save the Tasmanian devil? This project aims to measure the long-term genetic impacts of the Save the Tasmanian Devil Program’s ‘Wild Devil Recovery’ initiative. The project will determine whether supplementing small populations with individuals that are genetically diverse reduces inbreeding depression. The project will also monitor the impact of supplementation on the evolutionary trajectory of Devil Facial Tumour Disease. The project will train a cohort of conservation scie ....Will genetic rescue save the Tasmanian devil? This project aims to measure the long-term genetic impacts of the Save the Tasmanian Devil Program’s ‘Wild Devil Recovery’ initiative. The project will determine whether supplementing small populations with individuals that are genetically diverse reduces inbreeding depression. The project will also monitor the impact of supplementation on the evolutionary trajectory of Devil Facial Tumour Disease. The project will train a cohort of conservation scientists to translate genetic data into management actions. The outputs will directly inform the management actions of the Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries Parks, Water and the Environment and will help shape other species recovery programs.Read moreRead less
Antarctic cities and the global commons: Rethinking the gateways. Antarctic cities and the global commons: Rethinking the gateways. This project aims to investigate how the Antarctic gateway cities of Hobart, Christchurch and Punta Arenas might reimagine and intensify their relations to the continent and each other. As pressures on Antarctica increase, five 'gateway cities'—Hobart, Cape Town, Christchurch, Punta Arenas and Ushuaia—will become critical to its future. This research is expected to ....Antarctic cities and the global commons: Rethinking the gateways. Antarctic cities and the global commons: Rethinking the gateways. This project aims to investigate how the Antarctic gateway cities of Hobart, Christchurch and Punta Arenas might reimagine and intensify their relations to the continent and each other. As pressures on Antarctica increase, five 'gateway cities'—Hobart, Cape Town, Christchurch, Punta Arenas and Ushuaia—will become critical to its future. This research is expected to create a robust custodial network of partner organisations that helps these cities care for Antarctica.Read moreRead less
Global patterns of mammalian biodiversity loss over the last 50,000 years. Wild mammals have experienced major population losses and extinctions in recent centuries, but their communities had already suffered from widespread losses during the Pleistocene. Existing literature has focused on documenting individual extinctions or continental-scale patterns. This project aims to show how biodiversity loss played out at the local scale around the world. It will use palaeontological and zooarchaeologi ....Global patterns of mammalian biodiversity loss over the last 50,000 years. Wild mammals have experienced major population losses and extinctions in recent centuries, but their communities had already suffered from widespread losses during the Pleistocene. Existing literature has focused on documenting individual extinctions or continental-scale patterns. This project aims to show how biodiversity loss played out at the local scale around the world. It will use palaeontological and zooarchaeological data to show how losses varied in space, how population sizes changed, and how species attributes such as rarity and body size related to loss. The world of mammals has become more homogeneous as biodiversity has declined. The challenge is to show how that happened across space and time.
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