Chapter 4 – Academic and research focus

University Research Strengths – Creative and civil societies

This information is current as at January 2008. The latest information is available from UTS Research.

This group includes the following strengths, each of which undertakes research that contributes to the study of societies, communities and cultures and the creative practices within them.

Centre for Contemporary Design Practice

The Centre for Contemporary Design Practice (CCDP) combines several professions and academic disciplines. At a time when digital technologies are affecting every aspect of design, CCDP interrogates and re-defines design practices in the following interrelated areas: the history and theory of design and architecture; multi-modal creativity, cognition and interpretation; user-centred design; the evolution of contemporary design practices; content-design and knowledge-management for social media and public exhibition and archiving.

Inquiries

Professor Ross Gibson
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
telephone +61 2 9514 2292
fax +61 2 9514 2711
email Ross.Gibson@uts.edu.au

Centre for Research in Learning and Change

The Centre for Research in Learning and Change seeks to be a national and international leader in the investigation of the ways in which learning influences and is influenced by changes in educational institutions, workplaces, organisations and communities. It brings together internationally-recognised researchers from four main areas: workplace, organisational and adult learning; language, communication and culture; teacher professional formation; and learning in the digital age.

The Centre's research aims to understand how learning theories and practices can influence social and economic change, how learning is changing and how learning and change are embedded within and constructed by cultural and communication practices.

Inquiries

Associate Professor Clive Chappell
Faculty of Education
telephone +61 2 9514 3999
fax +61 2 9514 3933
email Clive.Chappell@uts.edu.au

China Research Centre

The China Research Centre (CRC) is a leading global site for research on modern China. The CRC concentrates on understanding social and cultural change in China and on accurately anticipating the impact of China's growing influence on global social, political, military, environmental, economic and cultural spheres.

The CRC has a number of research themes currently operating:

Inquiries

Professor Louise Edwards
Institute for International Studies
telephone +61 2 9514 7489
fax +61 2 9514 1578
email Louise.Edwards@uts.edu.au
http://www.iis.uts.edu.au/chinagroup

Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Research Centre

The Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Research Centre aims to develop a better understanding of social change and cultural cohesion in Australia and other cosmopolitan societies. The Centre's research interest is at the intersection of conflict and cohesion and in how division can be transformed into dialogue, recognition and inclusion. Its research programs focus on social action, community capacity, migration and cultural diversity, and aims to inform policy making for social and cultural sustainability.

Inquiries

Professor Jenny Onyx
School of Management
telephone +61 2 9514 3633
fax +61 2 9514 3602
email Jenny.Onyx@uts.edu.au

Centre for Strengthening Indigenous Communities

The Centre for Strengthening Indigenous Communities, within the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, aims to achieve strategic research outcomes that are valuable, usable and accessible to policy makers, research units and, most importantly, Indigenous communities and individuals. The Centre also aims to develop highly-skilled Indigenous researchers and to encourage Indigenous people to undertake undergraduate and postgraduate study at UTS.

Inquiries

Professor Larissa Behrendt
Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning
telephone +61 2 9514 9655
fax +61 2 9514 1894
email Larissa.Behrendt@uts.edu.au
http://www.jumbunna.uts.edu.au

Law Research Centre

As the home of the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII), UTS has the advantage of a unique legal research infrastructure. The vision of the Law Research Centre is to create a legal research and educational environment which serves the professions and the community, contributes to law reform and the development and maintenance of the rule of law, and assists in the creation of a just and principled society. It has four main programs: creating open access to legal knowledge; intellectual property research; international human rights law; and law reform for the benefit of health, families and communities.

Inquiries

Professor Jill McKeough
Faculty of Law
telephone +61 2 9514 3490
fax +61 2 9514 3488
email Jill.McKeough@uts.edu.au

Transforming Cultures — Centre for Social, Cultural and Historical Studies

Transforming Cultures was established in 1996 by some of the leading Humanities and Social Science researchers at UTS. The Centre's distinctive focus is on transnational social and cultural transformations in different media — language, film, radio, popular cultural forms — across time and across national and geographical boundaries.

The Centre promotes a research paradigm in cultural, historical and social research that seeks to transform understandings by intervention in matters of concern both locally and globally. It addresses constituencies and issues where, for example, justice is seen to be overlooked. It develops new areas of study made visible via its interdisciplinary mode of inquiry.

Transforming Cultures' approach embraces the complexity of a globalising world; researchers have been involved in cross-disciplinary debates concerning the modernist and postmodernist periods to the point of effective intellectual and methodological engagement with contemporary sites of conflict, diversity and difference. The Centre's scholarly responses to these realities cross political, aesthetic and historical traditions, and develop new and effective methodologies.

Activities of the Centre include a postgraduate seminar series, visiting international scholars, intensive postgraduate winter schools, conferences and publications.

Inquiries

Professor Stephen Muecke
Director, Transforming Cultures
CB03.4.50, City campus
telephone +61 2 9514 1960
fax +61 2 9514 2778
email Stephen.Muecke@uts.edu.au
http://www.transforming.cultures.uts.edu.au

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