The Australasian Consortium of Humanities Research Centres (ACHRC) is a network for groups engaged in Humanities-based research. Our aim is to connect Humanities researchers and centres, both within the Australasian region and internationally, and to promote relationships with cultural institutions and sector representative bodies in the wider community. We provide a virtual and physical hub for information about research opportunities and events, and seek to strengthen the public profile of research in the Humanities.
Humanities in the Regions 2017: “Impact, Engagement and Connectivity” |18-19 May |University of New England, Armidale
This two-day event combines presentations on practical aspects of working on Humanities-projects from the regions, expertise in collaboration and grant writing partnerships, and workshops aimed at generating research outcomes.
Participants will have the opportunity to meet with representatives from a range of peak body organisations, and to learn strategies for building strong research connections across universities and cultural institutions at both local and international levels. A range of workshops have also been designed to collaboratively explore key issues in our research practice:
- How do researchers in the Humanities build meaningful connections beyond their regional setting?
- How do we build partnerships to demonstrate and accentuate our impact within our regions?
- How do we develop strategies to maximise and communicate the benefits of our unique research environments when applying for grants?
Over two days, participants will hear keynote addresses from leading researchers and be invited to participate in panel discussions, as well as engage in workshops on key topics with peers. The workshops will give opportunities to discuss ideas with expert mentors and to reflect on how best practice can be applied at home institutions. Co-hosted by The School of Humanities, University of New England, and the ACHRC, the event will stimulate debate on future trajectories for research, will build cross-institutional connections and research synergies, and will enable strategies for funding success.
Keynotes:
Professor Melanie Oppenheimer (Flinders University, ARC College of Experts)
Professor Keir Reeves (Federation University)
The event is free but registration is essential.
The ACHRC calls on the Federal Government to fund TROVE, the most crucial Humanities Research infrastructure in Australia.
24 March 2016
Dear Mr Turnbull,
I write on behalf of the Australasian Consortium of Humanities Research Centres (ACHRC) to protest against the severe and destructive cuts recently visited upon the national galleries, museums, archives, and libraries (GLAM). Their work remains vital, not only to academic research, but also to the community at large and more broadly to the nation’s understanding of its own identity and its own achievements, past and present. These recent cuts, on top of the ‘efficiency dividend’ regularly imposed upon the national GLAM sector’s activities, have made it impossible for them to maintain the number and quality of the services they offer Australia’s researchers as well as the nation at large.
Like most of the individuals and institutions who have protested to the government in recent weeks, we would point to the arrested development of the Trove resource at the NLA as exemplary. Trove is a vital portal to research data for all the nation’s scholarly, teaching, and cultural institutions. It is a model of its kind around the world, a point vigorously expressed by the New Zealand academics on our board, who find the cut mystifying. An efficiency dividend that kills off its maintenance and development will distribute huge inefficiencies around the nation and the globe. Literally millions of research tasks will become harder and more time-consuming. Trove underwrites much of the research humanities scholars do, and ensures its impact by providing access to the public. It underwrites education by allowing individuals to combine teaching with research more efficiently, because we no longer have to travel across the country and spend days physically located in a library finding the sources we need. The NLA is justly proud of its achievement with trove and it is clear that only acute pressure from cascading cuts would force it to consider so drastic a measure.
In addition, Trove is a vital part of the many fundamental research facilities offered by the GLAM sector for humanities researchers. Along with the Academy of the Humanities, we would extend our protest against recent cuts by asking the government to consider funding the GLAM sector through its national research infrastructure. Australian culture is not, in fact, shrinking by a couple of percent per annum, and the GLAM infrastructure for supporting it has become as lean as it can be after more than two decades of attrition. Open and searchable collections provide the essential infrastructure for the tens of thousands of academics and citizens engaged in humanities research, on the spectrum from family history to world-leading cultural analysis. When the institutions that support them are under constant stress, education, culture and research outputs suffer.
Robert Phiddian
Director,
Australasian Consortium of Humanities Research Centres