Winter Research School for Indigenous Students

Published in the Research School of Physics Event Horizon
Vol44 Issue12 25–29 March 2019

Dear Colleagues,

The Vice Chancellor has tasked the National Centre for Indigenous Studies (NCIS) with creating a programme to encourage Indigenous students from around the country to consider study/research at the ANU.  To this end, NCIS is piloting a Winter Research School for Indigenous students as a taster of both research methodology and ANU campus life with an aim to create academic pathways for these students. The Winter Research School will run for one week in July (8th- 12th  TBC), with NCIS bearing the cost of bringing students to Canberra and their accommodation on campus. While they are here, students will complete a program of activities; including an introduction to research based in decolonised methodology, a tour of the ANU and surrounds and information on the support they could expect through the Tjabal Centre and the university generally as Indigenous students, should they choose to study here in future.

The major component of the program is that the students will work on a project under the supervision of an ANU academic staff member. The idea is not that this project be completed in one week, but that the student will commence a real (but guided) research project that will give them a some grounding in research methods and the beginning of an academic network. We will be targeting students in second year undergraduate and up, with anticipation that they will choose to return to the ANU as summer scholars, or even honours or HDR candidates to continue with their work.  

As the students could come from any academic discipline, matching students with appropriate work areas will require assistance from many areas of the university. If you could you circulate this information to your colleagues; we will require partners to suggest potential short discrete projects for these prospective students and to provide supervision of their progress throughout the week.

 Any queries from RSPE  staff can be directed to Stephen Hyde email: stephen.hyde@anu.edu.au.