For each Doctoral Academy, Melbourne Social Equity Institute selects a cohort of research higher degree students from across the university to share their research, knowledge and ideas on social equity issues.
The Melbourne Social Equity Institute's Doctoral Academy began in 2014. For each cohort, the Institute selects research higher degree students from across the University of Melbourne to share their research, knowledge and ideas on social equity issues.
The Doctoral Academy aims to support students through peer-learning opportunities and mentoring from experienced academics. Membership of the academy will expose doctoral students to different disciplinary perspectives and research methodologies that can inform the development of their own research.
Topics covered include:
- Community-engaged and participatory research methods
- The benefits and challenges of interdisciplinary research
- Working with Government
- Careers for researchers outside academia
The Doctoral Academy provided me with a valuable opportunity to connect with and learn from others tackling social equity issues from various perspectives, in and beyond the academia. Annisa Sabrina Hartoto, PhD candidate in Development Studies, Faculty of Arts
Applications close at 5.00pm AEST on Monday 3 July 2023
Time Commitment
The 2023 Doctoral Academy will be conducted as a four-day spring intensive, running from Monday 25 to Thursday 28 September. Workshops will be held between 10am and 3pm each day at the Parkville campus, with an online option available for those unable to physically attend.
It is not a requirement that members are present for every session. However, regular participation is expected and candidates should only apply if they can attend at least 80% of the program.
A modest stipend will be available for people accepted to the Doctoral Academy who having caring responsibilities to help cover costs associated with participating in the program (eg childcare).
Selection Criteria
Applicants must be enrolled at the University of Melbourne and are expected to have completed their doctoral confirmation process.
Applications will be reviewed by the Melbourne Social Equity Institute directorate staff, who will assess the applications against the following criteria:
- Does the applicant’s research project address social equity issues?
- Has the applicant demonstrated an interest in working across disciplines?
In determining successful applications, the Institute will seek to bring together a mix of students from a diverse range of disciplines.
Students who have participated in a previous Institute Doctoral Academy are ineligible.
Application Process
Applicants are asked to provide the following information via an online form. We strongly recommend that you prepare your answers offline (in Microsoft Word or similar) and save a copy for your own records.
Students who have been allocated an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship through the Melbourne Social Equity Institute qualify for automatic entry into the academy once they have completed confirmation. These students should still complete the application form but letters of support and a CV are not required.
- Name, enrolment and contact information
- Thesis title
- Confirmation and expected completion dates
- Principal supervisor's name and contact information
- Co-supervisor's name and contact information (if applicable)
- Research Summary
Please provide a brief summary of your PhD research, including key research questions and approaches (up to 200 words) - Personal Statement
Please tell us in up to 200 words:
(a) why you would like to become a member of the academy;
(b) any further information about yourself and your research interests not covered elsewhere - A current CV (upload attachment)
- A letter of support from your supervisor, indicating their support for your participation in the program if accepted (upload attachment – a copy of an email is sufficient)
Applications close at 5pm AEST on Monday 3 July 2023. Please get in touch via social-equity@unimelb.edu.au if you have any queries or difficulties accessing the online form.
2022
- Loren Adams
Project: Socio-spatial exploits: a critical anthology of urban heists, hacks, hijacks, and copycats - Georgia Burn
Project: Investigating a theoretical framework for Communication Access that supports social inclusion for people with communication disability - Philippa Duell-Piening
Project: The right to be counted for people with disabilities who are refugees or from refugee backgrounds - Vrinda Edan
Project: What is the experience of consumers who have an advance statement and a compulsory inpatient admission - Annisa Sabrina Hartoto
Project: The gender dimensions of conflict: understanding the role of women in transforming local dynamics of conflict in Indonesia - Helen Henderson
Project: Beliefs, understanding and access to male family planning in Timor-Leste - Kirsten Hillman
Project: Exploring the space of music, music therapy and trauma in the adult mental health context - Samuel Holleran
Project: Cemeteries as civic spaces: public participation in the planning of urban burial sites - Micheline Lee
Project: Disability, law and all that romance: a cross-disciplinary approach to equality rights for people with disabilities - Odette Mazel
Project: Queer jurisprudence: LGBTIQ+ perspectives on law, difference, and radicalism after marriage equality in Australia - Helena Roennfeldt
Project: Crossing the threshold: a study of the lived experiences of people in mental health crisis who have accessed mental health crisis care - Anna Scovelle
Project: Gender equality and the gendered division of labour in Australia: an exploration of the impact on sleep - Puneeta Thakur
Project: Pursuit of happiness for wheeled power mobility device users in urban public spaces: producing an evidence-informed model - Rana Zahroh
Project: Caesarean birth in Indonesia: understanding inequalities, inefficiencies and intentionalities
2020
- Rebecca Bunn
Project: Advocacy strategies in post-release contexts: how NGOs advocate on behalf of people leaving prison - Bethia Burgess
Project: Rethinking post-conflict justice in Myanmar: addressing structural harms through community-based projects - Nadia Degregori
Project: This is (not) over: The socio-environmental legacy of large-scale mine closure - Chabel Charles Din Khan
Project: Precarious risks: the governance of 'at risk' and 'vulnerable' welfare populations - Isabel Fangyi Lu
Project: Digital placemaking and public participation: planning, programming and governance of urban public spaces - Rewa Marathe
Project: Crowdsourcing safety: examining the role of digital women’s safety audits in shaping feminist advocacy for women’s ‘right to the city’ - Erika Martino
Project: From shelter to security: improving the quality and quantity of long-term affordable housing for survivors of intimate partner violence - Margaret Josephine McCarthy
Project: Morality and justice associated with everyday living in urban landscapes in times of climate change - Lubna Meempatta
Project: Modelling the interactions in decision-making by irrigators, irrigation water supply authorities and environmental water managers - Jacqui Parncutt
Project: Who cares? The lives and trajectories of Australian carers with disability - Karina Putri
Project: Urban planning and the search for social justice in the global south: lessons from resettlement planning practice in Jakarta - Pia Treichel
Project: The political economy of international climate finance: justice, adaptation, and the Green Climate Fund - Franka Vaughan
Project: Who is a Liberian anyway? The claim for formalised identity by diasporic Liberians
2018
- Louisa Bufardeci
Project: There's brown in beige: towards an aesthetic language to challenge whiteness - Matthew Mitchell
Project: Judging gender: the legal recognition and regulation of transgender children - Alicia Yon
Project: Access, participation and inclusion: the gender/disability/violence nexus and the role of integrated planning policy in addressing the right to services - Sri Pallavi Nadimpalli
Project: Examining spaces of belonging for migrant Indian women in 'Global Cities' - Ronny Andrade
Project: Echolocation as a means for people with visual impairment to build mental maps and explore virtual environments - Teresa Hall
Project: Investigating 'people-centred' mental health care in Timor-Leste - Ainslee Meredith
Project: Access to conservation: determinants, contemporary practice, and future policy design - Maya Ercole
Project: Exploring older adults' experiences of ageing in residential care homes through dramatherapy - Claudine Lam
Project: Counter narratives from the field: the lived experience of early childhood educators of colour - Diana Langmead
Project: An exclusive school and an inclusive rule: the mediation of equity policy by an elite school in India - Juan Jose Tellez
Project: Mending the patchwork: human rights and the regulation of chemical restraint in Australian health settings - Carol O'Dwyer
Project: Staff's experiences of providing gender-sensitive care in acute psychiatric units to women who have experienced sexual violence - Sally Marsden
Project: The VOICE project: voices of women and psychologists for a domestic violence counselling framework - Tess Toumbourou
Project: Exploring the gender dimensions of an oil palm land deal in East Kalimantan, Indonesia
2016
- Zoe Aitken
Project: How does acquiring a disability in adulthood affect people's mental health? - Tamara Borovica
Project: Becomings of moving bodies: young women, bodies and affect - Tania Cañas
Project: Theatre of the oppressed and conscientisation - Angeline Ferdinand
Project: Transferring international models of Aboriginal-centred health care to Australian settings - Anna Dabrowski
Project: Imagining global citizenship: policy, curricula and the role of the teacher - Rebecca Fairchild
Project: Collaborating with children in the homelessness and family violence context to understand the significance of music in their everyday lives - Sarah Green
Project: A safe and necessary coherence: the experiences of Bosnian child refugees in Australia - Thea Hewitt
Project: Locating the city of refuge: institutional support for humanitarian migrants in Melbourne, Australia - Kelly Hutchinson
Project: Social impact of technology: digital social innovation in Australia - Hesam Kamalipour
Project: Urban informalogy: the morphologies and incremental transformations of informal settlements - Lauren Kosta
Project: Parenting after a disaster: experiences since Black Saturday - Ingrid Landau
Project: Contextualising or constructing compliance? The rise of human rights due diligence and its implications for the protection of workers' rights in the global economy - Matthew Mabefam
Project: Witchcraft and development in Africa: a case study of northern Ghana - Frankline A. Ndi
Project: Land grabbing and community resettlement within the context of development projects in southwest Cameroon - Renee Miller-Yeaman
Project: Home, hospitality and confinement: the Villawood Immigration Detention Centre and Migrant Hostel - Emily Porter
Project: Youth labour market transitions during the Great Recession: assessing the role of institutions - Amita Tuteja
Project: Understanding the needs of migrants from Burma: reproductive health and contraception in the Australian healthcare context
2015
- Kari Gibson
Project: Climate change, coping and psychological distress in Tuvalu - Liz Gill-Atkinson
Project: How do women with disability in the Philippines understand and experience participatory research practice? - Kelvin Lau
Project: Understanding mental distress in young people from a migrant background in Australia through photo-interviewing - Maureen Murphy
Project: Local food environments for a healthy equitable city: evidence to inform urban planning policy and governance in Melbourne, Australia - Melissa Murphy
Project: From social connectedness to equitable access: A participatory action research illuminating the ways in which young people with disability can engage with music opportunities and the barriers that prevent them doing so - Hannah Robertson
Project: Resilient Remote Settlements: Analysing the role and potential of buildings to satisfy human needs in very remote settlements - Elly Scrine
Project: Exploring relational competencies in music therapy group improvisation for people with borderline personality disorder - Nathaniel Swain
Project: Speech-language pathology intervention for young offenders
2014
- Ashrafalsadat Hosseini
Project: Migration experience, resilience and psychological outcomes: an exploratory study of Iranian immigrants in Australia - Caroline Phillips
Project: Materialising feminism: object and interval - Cherry Hense
Project: Musical identities of young people recovering from mental illness - Cristina Aziz Dos Santos
Project: Inequality of learning opportunity: the location effect in the Chilean municipalized school choice system - David Henry
Project: Creating space to talk: cultural organisations, community engagement and intercultural dialogue - Elizabeth McLindon
Project: It happens to clinicians too: intimate partner, family and sexual violence amongst health professionals - Emily Cheesman
Project: Children's rights-based approaches to policies, services and programmes for Filipino street children - Gemma McKibbin
Project: "I knew it was wrong but I couldn't stop it": young people talk about the prevention of sexually abusive behaviour - Haslina Hashim
Project: Linking the past to the present: housing history and the sense of home in temporary public rental housing in Sarawak - Hayley Henderson
Project: Integrated planning with social logics in Melbourne and Buenos Aires - Kelum Palipane
Project: Towards a multimodal production of urban space: exploring the role of socio-sensory knowledge in design for urban renewal - Lily O'Neill
Project: A tale of two agreements: negotiating Aboriginal land access agreements in Australia's natural gas industry - Luke Heemsbergen
Project: Radical transparency in democratic governing: democracy unbound within a networked society? - Melinda Herron
Project: Reconfiguring racism: youthful dynamics of conflict and conviviality in a culturally diverse, working-class high school - Sara Ciesielski
Project: Language development and socialisation in Sherpa - Sophie Rudolph
Project: Racing the gap: a critical analysis of Australian Indigenous education policy discourse and its political effects
RESEARCHING FOR SOCIAL CHANGE
This compilation of working papers written by the 2014 Doctoral Academy cohort reflects critically on the process of researching for social change and the dilemmas and challenges of that work. Edited by Cherry Hense, Gemma McKibbin, Julie McLeod, Caroline Phillips and Sophie Rudolph.
If you have any questions about the Doctoral Academy, please contact social-equity@unimelb.edu.au.
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