Capacity building at the ICG

Deakin University’s Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation has been undergoing some research capacity building of its own.

Internationally regarded for its work in monitoring capacity building in places as diverse as Aceh and Kyrgyzstan, the ICG has had a growth spurt in 2009, welcoming a number of new researchers.

“We really seem to be going places at the moment,” said the Director of the ICG, Professor Fethi Mansouri.

“We have had four new ARC projects come to the ICG on top of eight existing ones.

“We also have eight grants funded by industry groups, so all in all there are now 20 externally funded projects in the ICG.

“Our growth has been pretty consistent for a while. We have some very strong groups working on a number of cohesive themes both nationally and internationally.

“The word is out about the quality of the research work we are able to do and that makes it easy for us to attract quality research.

Recent new additions to the research staff include:

Dr Emily Potter from the University of Melbourne

Dr Michelle Miller from the National University of Singapore Asia Research Institute

Dr Michelle Lobo from the University of Melbourne

Dr Les Morgan from RMIT

Dr Louise Jenkins from Monash University.

“Emily Potter, for example, came to us as an Early Career Researcher with her ARC-funded grants,” Professor Mansouri said.

“It is very pleasing for us to find ourselves in the position where we are attracting people from Melbourne and Monash Universities.

“It is confirmation of the quality and the depth of the work we are doing at Deakin.

“There is a real buzz in the building at the moment. New and existing staff can all sense that we have reached some new level of critical mass in our research.”

There’s another new face in those buzzing corridors, Associate Professor Manohar Pawar. From Charles Stuart University, he is at the ICG in the Centre for Citizenship, Development and Human Rights as a Visiting Research Fellow.

While at Deakin, he will be completing his book Community Development in Asia and the Pacific which will be published by Routledge, New York. His previous book, International Social Work is now used as a text in many universities around the world.

Another new face at the ICG is Mona Taouk who is working on a project funded by the Foundation for Young Australians investigating racism, health and wellbeing among Australian youth.

She is the recipient of a Macquarie Group Foundation PhD scholarship.

For more information on the ICG, visit:
http://www.deakin.edu.au/arts-ed/icg

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