NewsLetter
RegNet NewsLetter
Winter 2004
(PDF Version)
1. Congratulations
2. In the news
3. Conferences
4. Seminars
5. RegNet Centre Profile
6. RegNet People Profile
7. RegNet Visitor Profile
8. RegNet Projects Profile
9. Opportunities
CONGRATULATIONS
ARC Success
RegNet
scholars have again achieved outstanding results in
the recent Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage-Project
Grants 2004 round, receiving 3 of the ANU's total 15
ARC Linkage-Project Grants. Project details are:
- J Braithwaite, P Dugdale,
K Dwan, V Braithwaite and T Makkai for ‘Regulatory Strategies
for Improving Health Sector Performance' with industry
partners Australian Council for Safety and Quality in
Health Care and ACT Health (ARC funding $350,000 + industry
contribution)
- H Charlesworth, A Byrnes
for ‘ Australia 's First Bill of Rights: Assessing the
impact of the ACT's Human Rights Act' with industry
partner Department of Justice and Community Safety (ARC
funding $156,000 + industry contribution)
- P Drahos and J Werner,
‘National and Regional Patent Administration in Small
to Medium-Sized States in the Global Economy' with industry
partner IP Australia (ARC funding $141,000 + industry
contribution)
ARC Linkage-Project Grants
support research and development projects that are undertaken
to acquire new knowledge and that involve risk or innovation.
Linkage-Projects supports collaborative research projects
between higher education researchers and industry and
identifies an allocation to projects of benefit to regional
and rural communities. Proposals must contain an industry
contribution. The interaction with actual or potential
users of research outcomes is a critical element in
Linkage-Projects. Further
information about ARC Competitive Grant funding
Carolina
Roa, PhD Scholar, awarded two scholarships
Ms
Carolina Roa, PhD Scholar, RegNet, has been awarded
an Intellectual Property
Research Institute of Australia (IPRIA) Australian
Postgraduate Award (Industrial) and a travel scholarship
from the National
Institute of Social Sciences and Law (NISSL) at
the ANU. This funding will assist Carolina with her
thesis fieldwork in the Andean Region.
New
Director for the Australian Institue of Criminology
Dr
Toni Makkai has been appointed as Director at the Australian
Institute of Criminology (AIC) for a period of five
years. In 2001, Dr Makkai took up the position of Director
of Research and has been Acting Director at the AIC
since September 2003. Dr Makkai has a strong reputation
in the criminology community and has shown a solid commitment
to informing public policy development through social
science research. She was awarded her Doctorate in 1989
from the University of Queensland , following which
she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Research School
of Social Sciences. The AIC is an Australian Government
statutory authority, operated with a Board of Management
and reporting to the Attorney-General and the Minister
for Justice and Customs.
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IN
THE NEWS
US-Australia
Free Trade Agreement (FTA), Pharmaceutical Benefits
In
June, Dr Buddhima Lokuge, Visiting Fellow, RegNet and
Medical School, ANU and Dr Thomas Faunce, Senior Lecturer,
Medical School and Lecturer, Law Faculty, ANU, delivered
a presentation
to the Senate Select Committee on the Australia-US Free
Trade Agreement. Their work also appeared in the Sydney
Morning Herald on 19 July.
An article published
in the Australian
Medical Journal (9 July) co-authored by the ANU’s
Professor
Peter Drahos, RegNet, with Dr Thomas Faunce, Dr
Buddhima Lokuge, and Dr Ken J Harvey, La Trobe University,
sparked media coverage on ABC
Radio AM Edition and SBS
TV News. Further coverage was given in the Sydney
Morning Herald on 31 July.
Extensive comment from
Peter Drahos on the FTA and PBS featured on ABC
TV Four Corners on 2 August. The following day Labor
announced that they would block the FTA unless it contained
an amendment to protect the PBS and local media content.
Intense political debate ensued with the issue headlined
on local, regional,
national media, including the Australian
Financial Review and international press agencies
AAP and Dow
Jones.
‘Open-source’ approach
to medical research and drug development
Comments from Ms Janet Hope, PhD Scholar, RegNet, appeared
in the Economist
(10 June) (on-line viewing available to subscribers
only) in the article ‘An open-source shot in the arm’:
The application of the open-source approach to drug
development may prove to be more useful as an analogy
than an application, note Janet Hope, a lawyer completing
a doctorate on ‘open-source biotechnology’ at the Australian
National University, in Canberra. One reason is that
different intellectual property rights apply, and are
protected differently. Software usually falls under
copyright, which arises automatically and without cost
to the author. Biomedical discoveries are generally
protected by an entirely different legal regime, patents,
which are costly to obtain. This helps explain why the
drug-discovery and development projects place their
work in the public domain, rather than trying to enforce
some form of reciprocal openness through an open-source
licensing agreement, as software does.
Gambling issues
Throughout July, Professor
Jan McMillen featured in interviews with Radio Singapore
News Radio, ABC Radio National’s programs The National
Interest and Australia Talks Back and
Win TV News.
Fees turn graduates
into tax dodgers
Dr
Valerie Braithwaite and Dr
Eliza Ahmed on the front page of The
Times Higher Education Supplement (4 June) (on-line
viewing available to subscribers only). The article
profiles two new research papers: the first paper, published
in KYKLOS,
shows that among the groups more likely to cheat on
income tax returns are graduates who are carrying a
HECS debt along with non-custodial parents who are paying
child support. In Australia, the Tax Office has taken
responsibility for debt collection in both these areas
and the paper questions the wisdom of doing so: by being
a debt collection agency, the Australian Taxation Office
may be undermining its legitimacy for tax collection.
The second paper, to be published shortly in the Journal
of Economic Psychology, elaborates on the process of
de-legitimizing the taxation system.
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CONFERENCES
RegNet Conference
2004: Governance and Meta Regulation
6-8 December 2004,
Canberra
For further information contact Bronwyn
Stuart
Empirical Findings
and Theory Developments in Restorative Justice: Where
Are We Now?
23-25 February 2005, University House, Australian National
University, Canberra
Keynote speakers will include Lawrence Sherman,
Lode Walgrave, Heather
Strang and John
Braithwaite. The conference will focus on new empirical
findings, though high quality theoretical presentations
will also be welcome.
Abstracts should be sent no later than 15 December to
Heather Strang
Crime in Australia:
International Connections: The Australian Institute
of Criminology
29-30 November 2004, Hilton on the Park, Melbourne
The aim of this two-day conference is to examine
existing and emerging forms of criminality, their impact
on Australia and the links to transnational crime, as
well as policy and practitioner responses. Conference
themes ill include: illicit drugs, firearms, financial
crime and money laundering, cybercrime, maritime crime,
people trafficking, crimes against women and children,
violent and property crime and environmental crime.
Further information
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SEMINARS
Upcoming guests for the
RegNet
Lunchtime Seminar Series include:
- Ali Wardak, Centre for Criminology, University
of Glamorgan, UK, speaking on 'Restorative
justice and the Jirga in Afghanistan' on Friday,
13 August at 1pm, Lecture Theatre, Coombs
Extension Building (#8)
- Eamonn Keenan, De Montford University , UK,
speaking on 'Restorative Justice in Northern
Ireland and Russia' on Monday,
11 October at 1pm, Lecture Theatre, Coombs
Extension Building (#8)
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REGNET CENTRE PROFILE
Centre for Gambling
Research
The Centre
for Gambling Research (CGR) is an independent research
centre and forms part of RegNet. It is the only independent
Australian centre of multidisciplinary expertise in
gambling research, staffed by leading academics who
work collaboratively with experts at ANU and other universities.
The Centre has a national
and international reputation for quality research into
all aspects of gambling, gambling policy and associated
impacts. The Centre was established in mid-2002 with
joint funding from the ANU and the ACT Gambling and
Racing Commission. Professor Peter Grabosky was appointed
the first Director of the Centre. In April 2003 Professor
Jan McMillen was appointed as Director. Jan previously
held the position as Australia’s first professor of
gambling research at the University of Western Sydney,
where she was Director of the former Australian Institute
for Gambling Research (AIGR) 1997-2003.
The Centre’s aims are
to conduct a regular program of research and publications
which will focus on:
• the social and economic
effects of gambling;
• the prevention
of problem gambling;
• the regulation of gambling;
• the nature of the gambling industry; and
• consumer education on gambling.
Pictured below with their 2 feet on the ground are the
Gambling Centre's David Marshall, Jan McMillen and Julie
Lahn.
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REGNET
PEOPLE PROFILE
Miranda Forsyth, PhD
Scholar, RegNet (part-time)
Based in her home town of Port Vila in Vanuatu,
Miranda is researching her PhD thesis titled ‘Kastom
and Criminal Justice in Vanuatu: Towards a Peaceful
Future’. Miranda is exploring ways in which the links
between the currently informal structures that regulate
law and order (kastom) and the formal criminal justice
system in Vanuatu can be strengthened. In particular,
Miranda’s research looks at those autochthonous institutions
that have developed since Independence in some of the
islands to see if they can offer some ideas on a future
way for building bridges between the two systems.
Describing this recent
image, Miranda writes: This photo shows me at one
of the last places that I went to for my fieldwork in
Vanuatu. It is a place called ‘Happy Lands’ on the island
of Erromango (so called because it was the last place
the missionaries could go on Erromango before they risked
being attacked by the non-Christianised inhabitants
who were still cannibals at that time). Happy Lands
is one of the most remote places I have visited so far
getting there involved a long speed boat ride and then
a significant hike but it was incredibly rewarding.
I was able to interview some chiefs and ni-Vanuatu fieldworkers
who gave me some great insights into their system of
dispute resolution and the problems they are currently
facing in regard to peace and order on their island.
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REGNET
VISITOR PROFILE
Angus Corbett,
RegNet Visiting Fellow, July September 2004
Angus
Corbett, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University
of New South Wales, is one of the leading scholars in
Australia taking the perspective of a regulatory approach
to law. Angus was an important contributor to the RegNet
ARC Meta-Regulation project. During his six-week stay
with RegNet, Angus will be investigating the potential
for developing better ways of integrating systems of
compensation into regulatory frameworks.
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REGNET
PROJECTS PROFILE
Foundation for
Effective Markets and Governance (FEMAG)
Since 2001, RegNet
has housed FEMAG
and mounts joint bids for AusAid projects. FEMAG is
comprised of members Hank Spier, John Wood, Robin Brown
and Howard Hollow – all of whom hold distinguished records
as public- and NGO-policy makers. Recent FEMAG activities
include:
Fiji Commerce Commission
– FEMAG is currently providing technical assistance
and capacity building for Fiji’s competition regulator.
This will involve training in the practical implementation
of the law, preparation of operating procedures, preparation
of guidelines on a number of policy issues, development
of a compliance strategy and priorities and ongoing
support and policy advice. Recently a two-day training
program was undertaken by Hank Spier. Participants included
the Commission, senior business people, academics and
senior members of the public service. A further intensive
five-day training exercise has just been completed by
Howard Hollow for the Commission and its staff. This
was particularly directed to addressing issues that
will arise in the administration of the law.
Consumer Council
of Fiji – This project will involve training and
capacity building for the consumer movement and civil
society, development of a strategy to inform consumer
of their rights and responsibilities under the law and
preparation of research papers and educational material.
The training component of the project will be completed
by Howard Hollow and Robin Brown in August with the
balance of the project to be completed by the end of
the year.
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OPPORTUNITIES
Special Joint
Project Programmes: Australia and Britain
The Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, the
Australian Academy of the Humanities and the British
Academy have launched a new scheme for the support of
joint projects between British and Australian scholars.
One award (of up to £8,000) for a project which covers
both humanities and social sciences disciplines, or
two awards (of up to £4,000 per project) will be available
each year, to cover travel and maintenance expenses.
Closing date: 30 September for projects to commence
from April of the following year.
Further
information
Cross-Faculty
Professorship at UNSW
The University of New South Wales is creating up to
five fully funded 'cross-faculty' Professorships, made
possible by a $4 million donation to the University
from NewSouth Global. The objective is to develop new
areas of research excellence and attract dynamic new
research talent to UNSW. Applications will be sought
in the following collaborative research areas:
- Brain Sciences
- Criminology
- Economic and Organisational Implications of Demographic
Change and Ageing
- Health and Human Rights
- Health and the Built Environment
- Integrity and Equity in the Tax and Welfare Systems
- Multi-disciplinary Design
- New Media Narrative and Theory
- Sustainable Habitats
Further
information
MIT Human Rights
and Justice Fellowship
The MIT Program on Human Rights and Justice is pleased
to announce Human Rights and Justice Fellowships, aimed
at outstanding professionals, academics and activists
working at the intersection of human rights and other
topics, who wish to conduct in-depth research into specific
topics of social and natural sciences and engineering
as they relate to human rights and justice issues. Proposals
for human rights research relating to the global economy
and science and technology are especially welcome. The
PHRJ offers a congenial and ideal environment for interdisciplinary
research and reflection on human rights issues, especially
those at the forefront of global public policy. The
fellowships are open to applicants of any nationality.
Please note that there is a $3,000 fee requirement for
fellows.
For more details on the fellowship or to apply, contact
the PHRJ at phrj@mit.edu
or call 617-258-7614.
Further
information
University of
New South Wales Vice Chancellor’s and NewSouth Global
Postdoctoral Research Fellowships
A number of Post-Doctoral Research Fellowships are offered
to attract outstanding post-doctoral scholars to conduct
full time research at the University in any of its disciplines.
Applicants must hold a doctorate at the time of application
and must not have been awarded their doctorates more
than three years ago. Salary will be within the Level
A (steps 6-8) range ($55,763 - 59,637) for a period
of three years. An annual allowance is also available
for research materials and conference expenses. Deadline(s):
01/10/2004
Further
information or p.ohara@unsw.edu.au
Collaborative
Research Opportunities with Europe: Free Information
Seminar
You are invited to a free seminar on the opportunities
for international cooperation provided by the CORDIS
website. The Community Research and Development Information
Service provides a unique overview of research and technological
development in Europe and offers opportunities for Australian
academic and industry researchers to develop their relationships
with Europe. The European Commission, the Department
of Education, Science and Training will also be presenting
on funding opportunities and representatives from other
agencies including the hosting organisations may also
present.
Friday 20 August, Conference Room, The
National Europe Centre, The Australian National
University
Advance registration to attend is essential. Places
are limited.
Please register
online
