Politically Engaged Geographical Research with the Community Sector: Is It Encouraged by Australia's Higher Education and Research Institutions?

With the application of neoliberal thinking to the higher education sector, measures of research quality and utility have proliferated in efforts to increase academic accountability, innovation, and contributions to public policy. We intend to reignite discussion about community activism and the role of the academic in response to trends in higher education policy and recent debate in Australia about research quality assessment and policy relevance. We challenge the common portrayal of the public sector as the sole locus of policy‐making and argue the case for greater recognition of the role of the community sector and its research partners in policy development and implementation – one that is not given due attention in the discourse on or in measures of research value and impact. Informed by recent literature on governance and interpretative approaches to policy analysis, we draw on our combined experience conducting research with two Australian movements at the forefront of reforms to property rights institutions, legal standards, and norms relating to social and economic equity to outline the institutional tensions and structural impediments facing researchers working with the non‐government sector. The paper documents the progressive roles the academic can play in such work, arguing that institutional change is required within the tertiary sector to support researchers to build closer, more trusting research partnerships in which due attention is given to social impact and relevance.     

The Leeds and Yorkshire Geographical Society c. 1902–17

The Leeds and Yorkshire Geographical Society was one of ten 'provincial' geographical societies in England and Scotland established between 1884 and 1910, of which five were in the North of England. It was conceived in about 1902, formally founded in 1908, but had ceased to exist after 1917. Virtually nothing has been discovered hitherto of the Leeds society's history, functions and contexts. This essay examines the evidence for its conception, inauguration, programmes of activity, and the broader local/civic, national and global contexts within which it operated. Its brief history sheds light upon: the need for commercial information to promote trade in an imperial context; the development of geographical thought in Britain and Western Europe; finally, popular curiosity about new geographical information and ideas promoted by geographical exploration and discovery. Comparison is made with the activities of other English ‘provincial’ geographical societies, particularly those in the North of England. The new evidence derives from papers in the West Yorkshire Archive Service Leeds, the archives and publications of the Royal Geographical Society, and the programmes of meetings promoted via the Society itself and the Leeds Institute, housed in Leeds Central Library, together with reports and advertisements in local newspapers.     

Modified Kaplan–Meier Estimator and Nelson–Aalen Estimator with Geographical Weighting for Survival Data

The Kaplan–Meier and Nelson–Aalen estimators are universally used methods in clinical studies. In a public health study, people often collect data from different locations of the medical services provider. When some studies need to consider survival curves from different locations, traditional estimators simply estimate the marginal survival curves using stratification. In this article, we use the idea from geographically weighted regression to add geographical weights to the observations to get modified versions of the Kaplan–Meier and Nelson–Aalen estimators which can represent the local survival curve and cumulative hazard. We use counting process methods to derive these modified estimators and to estimate their variances. In addition, we discuss some general spatial weighting functions which can be used in computing these estimators. Furthermore, we present simulation results to illustrate the performance of the modified estimators. Finally, we apply our method to prostate cancer data from the SEER cancer registry for the state of Louisiana.     

Codifying Ethical Conduct for Australian Parliamentarians 1990–99

In the closing decade of the twentieth century, increasing attention was given to the codification of ethical behavioural standards among public officials, internationally and throughout Australian jurisdictions. This paper describes, compares and provides a preliminary analysis of the limited Australian codification initiatives for elected public officials in State and federal Parliaments over this period, with particular focus on the New South Wales and Queensland legislatures. The paper shows that Members of Parliament are reluctant to adopt codes of ethics or conduct and forecasts that the focus on implementing codes alone, without a range of supporting ethics initiatives, is likely to be of little effect.     

Liberal Imperialism in Australian Political Thought, 1902–14

British politics immediately following the Boer War featured a group of politicians and intellectuals known as the Liberal Imperialists and this account explores the political thought of their Australian counterparts. Australian liberal intellectuals of particular relevance for this study were located in Melbourne, which was at that time the federal capital, and they were loosely clustered around the key political figure of the period, Alfred Deakin. The extended circle of Alfred Deakin provides scholars with a useful group of active intellectuals from whom it is possible to derive an idea of the Australian inflection given to Liberal Imperialist thought, concentrating on the intersection of notions of imperial unity and progressive social reform agendas which flourished in both Australia and Britain during the Edwardian era. The group of politicians and public intellectuals, comprising an overlapping membership including the Imperial Federation League, friends and associates of Alfred Deakin and the Boobooks Club, would subsequently evolve into the main Australian branch of the Round Table organisation. This article is concerned with discovering the outlines of the Australian version of Liberal Imperialist thought and especially the nature of the Australian inflection superimposed on this British set of ideas, as found in a variety of contemporary pamphlets, printed books and Boobooks minutes. The Australians were less pessimistic than Richard Jebb about the possibilities of a supranational imperial organisation but also insisted that such an organisation must respect the sovereignty of dominions. They differed from most of their British counterparts in supporting the widespread use of tariffs to nurture industry and they also supported the restrictive immigration position enshrined in the infamous White Australia policy, yet they were much in favour of the notion of a strong British navy.     

The politicisation of Australian nurses: Victoria 1984–1986

This paper examines the nursing disputes in Victoria between 1984 and 1986 against the background of moves by nurses to acquire professional status. It investigates the reasons for the disputes and argues that the politicisation of nurses in Victoria is in part a result of their historical relationship to the dominant profession in the health systems and of their previous reluctance to use industrial action in support of improved working conditions. Our research is discussed in relation to findings in the United States and the United Kingdom.

The conclusion is drawn that political action by nurses is indicative of a particular trend in white‐collar unionism and that it is inextricably linked to the process of professionalisation.     

Arid-Zone Studies in the USSR, 1956–60

The Soviet Union, along with other countries, has been investigating the potential uses of geothermal energy as a renewable substitute for fossil fuels. Interest in the applications of geothermal energy appears to have quickened in recent years. The country's geothermal resources have been surveyed, a Research Council on Geothermal Studies functions in the Soviet Academy of Sciences, and geothermal development has been made the responsibility of the Ministry of the Natural Gas Industry. The use of geothermal energy for electric power generation has been limited to two small stations on the Kamchatka Peninsula, but low-temperature uses of geothermal energy have been more widely developed, particularly in Kamchatka, southern Siberia and the Caucasus. They include such applications as space heating of buildings, greenhouse operation and balneological uses.     

Future directions in Australia–Japan relations: an Australian perspective

This article offers an Australian perspective on future directions in Australia–Japan relations. An attempt is made to identify issues that will have a bearing on the bilateral relationship over the next five years and beyond at the national level. There is not any likelihood of a substantial rupture or change in relations in the short-term. The continuation of a stable, close and dynamic relationship in the mid to long-term, however, will depend on how both countries conduct their respective foreign policies towards China.1 1. I wish to thank Bill Tow for his comments on a draft of this article. Peter Drysdale, Purnendra Jain, Chris Pokarier, Chris Braddick, Takashi Terada and Geoff Miller also provided useful comments on a draft at the Workshop on the 30th Anniversary of the NARA Treaty organised through the Australia–Japan Research Centre at the Australian National University, and the Australian Institute of International Affairs, 31 July 2006. View all notes