About
The Melbourne Social Equity Institute supports collaborative research between academics, members of community organisations, policymakers and people with lived experiences which helps build fairer societies.
Launched in 2020, the Melbourne Social Equity Institute's Community Engagement Grants scheme is aimed at University of Melbourne researchers with an idea to test, explore and develop in partnership with members of disadvantaged or marginalised communities.
The funding enables researchers to develop interdisciplinary and community-engaged networks within and external to the University. The scheme also aims to support research ideas that may lead to a proposal for future rounds of the Institute’s Seed Funding Program or the Community Fellows Program.
The Community Engagement Grants are designed to build a researcher’s / research team’s ability to engage with community issues at a grassroots level.
The maximum amount of funding available is $3000 per project.
2022/2023 Grant Recipients
- Dr C.Q. Quinan
School of Culture and Communication
Sex/gender data collection and trans & gender diverse communities
- Dr Sarah Woodland
Faculty of Fine Arts and Music
Creative practice, criminalised women and transformative justice outcomes
- Dr Nicholas Hill
School of Social and Political Sciences
Working with LGBTIQA+ people working in peer roles
- Dr Dave McDonald
School of Social and Political Sciences
Careleavers Australasia Network Collaboration
- Dr Wilfred Yang Wang
School of Culture and Communication
Info-anxiety among older Chinese migrants
2020/2021 Grant Recipients
- Professor Farrah Ahmed
Melbourne Law School
Working with Muslim Women Australia to review family violence case data
- Dr Ashley Barnwell
School of Social and Political Sciences
Storytelling and survivors of childhood institutional abuse.
- Dr Candice Boyd
School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Young people and eco-anxiety
- Dr Tania Cañas
Victorian College of the Arts
Community engaged research
- Dr Liz Dean
School of Social and Political Sciences
Beyond the Bars Digital Archive
- Professor Adrian Hearn
School of Languages and Linguistics
Working with the Yoruba Heritage and Cultural Association
- Dr Claire Loughnan
School of Social and Political Sciences
imprisoned people facing visa cancellation
- Dr Catherine Phillips
School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Connecting academic research with the broader food systems movement
- Dr Katrina Raynor
Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning
Affordable housing for older women
- Dr Michael Santhanam-Martin
School of Agriculture and Food
Working with St Paul’s African House in Shepparton
Application Process
Applications closed at 5pm AEDT on Monday 17 October 2022. The details below are for information purposes only.
Applications for the Community Engagements Grants opened on Monday 29 August 2022.
To be eligible, the lead applicant must be research-active and hold:
- a PhD, and
- at the minimum, an 0.5 FTE salaried, academic research-inclusive appointment at the University of Melbourne until 31 December 2023 at the least.
Applicants are asked to provide:
- Information about the lead applicant
- Details for any University of Melbourne collaborators if known at this stage
- The external collaborators you would like to engage with or with whom you are in discussions
- An indication of the research priority area(s) that their idea aligns with
- A description of the problem or opportunity that they would like to explore (up to 250 words)
- An explanation of how they will engage with people with lived experiences and/or the community organisations that support them (up to 250 words)
- A description of the potential community engagement activities that they wish to undertake with your potential / identified community partners (up to 250 words)
- The anticipated start and end dates
- A project budget
The maximum amount of funding available is $3000 per project. Funds may be used for:
- Employing research assistants
- Remuneration to support community participation (e.g. vouchers for participation in a workshop or roundtable). Please refer to the rates suggested in the Institute's Guidelines for Equitable and Fair Remuneration for Community Research Participants
- Employing professional staff to provide administrative or project management support
- Translation, interpretation and accessibility costs that may be required to support the participation of team members or research participants
- Consultant costs for workshop preparation, facilitation and/or post-workshop follow-up
- Modest costs associated with travel expenses, accommodation and catering, given the current COVID-19 pandemic
- Registration or membership fees to support engagement with a new network/association.
Funds may NOT be used for:
- Salary top-ups to existing University of Melbourne staff for additional workload
- Renewing existing registration/membership fees for a network/association.
Applications which request funds to supplement another University grant, external grant or research contract will generally be excluded from consideration.
Contact
To discuss the Community Engagement Grants application process, please contact Professor Jo Barraket (Director) or Charlene Edwards (Executive Officer).
For general enquiries, please contact social-equity@unimelb.edu.au.
Dr C.Q. Quinan
School of Culture and Communication
Exploring how sex/gender data is collected by sectors in Australia and engaging with trans and gender diverse communities to identify their experiences and priorities and understand best practices.
Dr Sarah Woodland
Faculty of Fine Arts and Music
Collaborating with Flat Out, a state-wide advocacy and support service for women, trans and gender diverse people (and their children) who have been criminalised, to explore how creative practice led by criminalised women in the community might support transformative justice outcomes.
Dr Nicholas Hill
School of Social and Political Sciences
Working with LGBTIQA+ people working in peer roles across diverse service settings – including mental health, suicide prevention, transgender affirmative care, disability support, housing, sexual health and substance use – to understand their experiences, document concerns, and identify models of best practice.
Dr Dave McDonald
School of Social and Political Sciences
Developing a collaborative partnership with the Careleavers Australasia Network (CLAN) to co-design a project to examine how practices involving the preservation of history (such as the National Orphanage Museum) may be understood as unofficial truth projects.
Dr Wilfred Yang Wang
School of Culture and Communication
In collaboration with the Centre for Holistic Health and Boroondara Chinese Senior Citizen Club, this project will pilot a ‘community ambassador approach’ to understand info-anxiety among older Chinese migrants in Melbourne.
Professor Farrah Ahmed
Melbourne Law School
Collaborating with Muslim Women Australia to review family violence case data and conduct roundtables to document and better understand the impacts of COVID-19 on culturally and linguistically diverse communities.
Dr Ashley Barnwell
School of Social and Political Sciences
Gathering evidence on the success of storytelling and creative writing programs at Lotus Place in Queensland, a service for Forgotten Australians and survivors of childhood institutional abuse.
Related Article
Ashley Barnwell, Cate O’Neill, Kirsten Wright, 'Writing Wrongs Right: Decentring Trauma with a Forgotten Australians’ Creative Writing Group', Oral History Australia, No. 45, 2023.
Dr Candice Boyd
School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Collaborating with Headspace to explore the experience of young people living in areas of regional Australia that will be the most affected by climate change to understand how ‘eco-anxiety’ creates further impacts on their mental health.
Dr Tania Cañas
Victorian College of the Arts
Building a partnership between the Victorian College of the Arts and cohealth Arts Generator to develop a community engaged research module for researchers in the creative arts, design and media fields.
Dr Liz Dean
School of Social and Political Sciences
Developing a digital archive of the 3CR radio program Beyond the Bars, a series of prison broadcasts facilitated by 3CR’s First Nations’ Australian Community Radio broadcasters for NAIDOC week.
Professor Adrian Hearn
School of Languages and Linguistics
Working with the Yoruba Heritage and Cultural Association of Victoria to understand youth engagement with its program and activities.
Dr Claire Loughnan
School of Social and Political Sciences
Mapping the gaps in legal assistance to imprisoned people facing visa cancellation in partnership with the Visa Cancellation Working Group, a national network of legal organisations.
Dr Troy Potter
Melbourne Graduate School of Education
Exploring youth popular culture texts to better understand how they inform boys’ understanding of gender inequality and gender-based violence.
Dr Catherine Phillips
School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Developing a research partnership with Cultivating Communities, connecting academic research with the broader food systems movement and beyond, addressing issues including sustainability, culturally appropriate food, food security and social justice.
Dr Katrina Raynor
Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning
Addressing barriers to secure and affordable housing for older women by working with community groups to build networks and establish a co-learning process between older women and housing providers to build a shared understanding of women’s housing preferences, assets and options.
Dr Michael Santhanam-Martin
School of Agriculture and Food
Building a research relationship with St Paul’s African House in Shepparton and supporting the Centre’s Working for Victoria COVID-19 recovery data gathering projects.