Community and Industry Links

The School of Political Science, Criminology & Sociology has established many vital links with community and industry groups in Australia. Some of the most notable include:

• Links with VicHealth
• Brotherhood of St Laurence
• Transitional Labour Markets in Australia (Centre for Public Policy)

Links with VicHealth

Over the last few years, the Department has established strong links and a productive working relationship with VicHealth - the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation. VicHealth funds a number of research projects in the Department and a number of mutual interests have developed, including: partnerships, social connectedness and civic engagement, and the linkages between policy, services, communities and health.

Jenny Lewis has a five year (2001-5) Senior Research Fellowship which is jointly funded by VicHealth and the Department of Human Services. This fellowship research: 'Connecting for health and wellbeing: networks and partnerships in health', is analysing networks of influence in health; and examining partnerships as key means for creating linkages and collaborations. In December 2004, this fellowship research received an Excellence in Health Promotion Research commendation from VicHealth.

Jenny Lewis, Mark Considine and Jo Barraket have a project grant from VicHealth titled 'Social connectedness and policy development: modelling strategies and measures', which is examining the key explanations of social connectedness, and then explicitly linking together community engagement, forms of policy development, and impacts on health. This has lead to an ARC Linkage grant application which is currently under consideration.

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Brotherhood of St Laurence

The Brotherhood of St Laurence is a Melbourne-based community organization which was established in the 1930s by an Anglican priest Fr Gerard Tucker. Its major commitment of resources to applied social research has made it unique among NGOs concerned with ending poverty in Australia. In 2004, the Department entered into a partnership with the BSL to create a joint appointment linking the Department's new Master of Social Policy coordinator position with the post of General Manager of Social Action and Research at the BSL. Through research, seminars and teaching partnerships this unique venture in Australia's welfare sector will be a key platform for facilitating the knowledge transfer envisaged by the University's Growing Esteem.

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Transitional Labour Markets in Australia

The Centre for Public Policy at the University of Melbourne is currently in the second year of a 2 year research project on Transitional Labour Markets in Australia in which important links with the broader community and industry accompany accompany conventional academic research support from the Australian Research Council.

In this project, the National Institute of Economic and Industry Research; the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) and the Brotherhood of St Laurence are Project Partners representing the economic and community sectors. These bodies not only augment the core funding obtained from the ARC Linkage Grant but in addition, these broader perspectives ensure that the project addresses issues and produces reports which cover critical contemporary issues in relation to policy formulation in the labour market.

The project takes as its initial premise the idea that traditional concepts of employment, based on the full-time male breadwinner model, are no longer relevant with a new approach required which recognises and integrates key transitions across the life course.

A major Conference, with international speakers, has been arranged for late February 2005 around key themes emerging from this study. The structure of this Conference and the publications envisaged for the project as a whole have greatly benefited from the involvement of the broader interests in the project and this is certain to have positive spillover effects for the University.

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