[0915-1105]
Welcome to Ericsson's Live Remote Captioning Service.
SPEAKER: Thank you, everyone, for being here. We will go ahead and get started. Unfortunately, the weather today has meant that a number of people are running late. But everyone that's speaking in the next hour happens to be here. So we'll go ahead and get started in an effort to stay close to the schedule. I first want to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land in which this event is taking place. The land of Wurundjuri and pay respects to their elders and families.
I think I actually know most people in the room but just to introduce myself again, I'm Anna ArsteinKerslake, I'm the academic convenor of Disability Research Initiative. My area of expertise is in... I also at the Melbourne Law School. The Disability Research Initiative originated, or the idea for it originated for it in a forum hosted by the Social Equity Institute in 2013. We thought it was a perfect moment to have another similar forum. To highlight the achievements that we've had as a community in the disability research space.
We will be able to reflect on those achievements today and discuss the future of disability research at the University of Melbourne and beyond.
There is a few housekeeping things to let you know today. There is a hearing loop. We've been advised it works best in the front two rows here. Wifi is available, using the details on the screen. They're not on screen. But, um, the user name is DRI2017 and the password is Ygkkpy, and I believe that information is on the registration desk.
Speech to text translation is up on the screen here. Toilets are at the top of the stair, up the ramps, at the back.
We have photographers here with us this morning. If anybody doesn't want their picture taken or used, please let one of us know and we'll make a note of that.
I think we can now go ahead and get started with remarks from our two distinguished guests, Professor Jim McCluskey and Professor Mark Hargreaves.
Professor Jim McCluskey is the Deputy ViceChancellor of Research at the University of Melbourne appointed in March 2011. Prior to this he was the Pro ViceChancellor Research and Partnership and Chair of Immunology and Biology. He has an international reputation for his research in clinology and... (inaudible) he has served with the Australian Red Cross for more than 20 years and is the editorinchiefof a journal. Professor McCluskey led the development of the Peter Dorety Institute for Infection and Immunity. He is on the board of various institutes.
SPEAKER:
(APPLAUSE)
PROF McCLUSKEY: Thank you very much, Anna. That was possibly a little bit too long for me. But, good morning, everyone, and welcome to this fabulous event that celebrates the achievements of the Disability Research Initiative here at the University of Melbourne.
I, too, I would like to pay my respects to the Wurundjuri people, traditional owners of the land in which we meet, and acknowledge their elders past and present.
At the University of Melbourne we have a wonderful academic community with deep scholarship in many, many areas, wonderful learning and teaching capability. But often, it is fragmented and not directly pointed at major issues facing the community and the society at large.
And so we've initiated a number of interdisciplinary research initiatives that try to bring together these disparate parts. The theory is pretty simple that is, big social challenges, or opportunities, need multiple inputs. They need the perspective that comes from scholars from different disciplines.
Disability is absolutely no exception, for obvious reasons. It is a huge opportunity, if we can do everything we can, to make sure that disabled people have every opportunity to fulfil their potential. It is an area that needs significant research. We need the evidence, we need to know how best to do this in different forms of disability. We need to have a proper basis, particularly when it comes to asking governments to spend money.
And so, that's, in a sense, part of what this Disability Research Initiative is all about. And it harks to the piece of logic that some of you have heard me expound before, and that is that the really big social challenges that we face as a planet, as a community, um, in order to get the measure of those challenges, you need to see them from multiple different perspectives. They need to be seen from every possible angle.
And in many ways, that's what this initiative is about. It's about seeing all of the aspects of disability that might be loci of a change in the way we do things that can make a difference.
And that difference is pointed at helping people fulfil their potential. I think that is, fundamentally, what universities are about.
Now I tend to see universities as civilising influences on society with an agenda around helping people fulfil their potential.
I mean 'civilising' in a broad sentence, not a pejorative, paternalistic sense. Bringing a deep understanding to the complex issues faced in society.
I congratulate Anna and her team on what's been achieved since the beginning of this Hallmark Initiatives. I think being able to look at the challenges of disability across the broad spectrum and the many different lenses we have here at the university from disability as a social equity, social inclusion issue, through to the economics of disability, through to medical aspects of it, legal and human rights aspects, gender, race, and the many different ways in which disability can be perceived and needs to be addressed, if we are to achieve the full potential of all human beings.
Fundamental to that, I think, is these different perspectives and the research needed to provide the evidence. So, for me, this is a really powerful coalition. As you proceed through the day, I hope all of you, or most of you, can stay for the whole day, you begin to see disability with a different perspective.
(Pause)
I hope that the University of Melbourne can grow this initiative. Part of today, I guess, is 'what next'? We are working with key stakeholders to look at how that might happen across the university. How we might build something out of the very impressive success of this initiative that carries us forwards. Because I think the achievements have been very significant.
So I just want to congratulate Anna, congratulate everyone involved in this, and thank you for this opportunity to say just a few words, which is involving an initiative that is quite dear to my heart. So thank you very much. Congratulations.
(APPLAUSE)
DR ARSTEINKERSLAKE: Thank you very much, Jim. Professor Mark Hargreaves is now going to give us an introduction to the Hallmarks more broadly. He was appointed asthe ViceChancellor of the University of Melbourne. Mark is a distinguished physiology with teaching and research interests in exercise physiology and metabolism. He has studied muscle and skeletal metabolism. Mark had a strategic role in part of the Melbourne part of the
development implementation.
(APPLAUSE)
PROF M HARGREAVES: Thanks very much, Anna. I would like to apologise in advance that due to other commitments, I won't be able to stay here the whole day, but I have colleagues here and I look to hearing of some of the discussion that took place today.
My role as Pro ViceChancellor in Research Collaboration and Partnerships, I would like to acknowledge the Professor who led the role last year when I returned to Chancellory research. Jim outlined the reasons it was established. It was to profile our diverse and talented research capability across a number of disciplines but directed at particular, large societal problems. The Melbourne Research Institutes initiative was the first manifestation of the desire to promote interdisciplinary research. And those of you undertaking that know it can be challenging. The recognition for such research is not always forthcoming. So an institutional commitment like this sends a strong message that the University of Melbourne has a commitment to honouring not only its fine investigatordrive n research but the interdisciplinary research.
A number of years ago it was decided to undertake another manifestation of that investment in interdisciplinary research and the Hallmark Initiatives which were funded at a lower level and auspiced under one of the existing institutes to take advantage of that infrastructure. The Disability Research Initiative came under the Melbourne Social Equity Institute. There are other...around data science, ageing and we are looking to see how we can continue the investment in those activities in the years ahead.
So today's event, as Jim outlined, is an important occasion to take stock of what's been achieved and those achievements are considerable. So congratulations to Anna, Bernadette, everyone associated with the initiative and the Social Equity Institute. As Jim outlined, we have undertaken some discussions about how the university can make a significant contribution to improving the lives of people with a disability, their families and their carers. That would involve activity in a number of spaces. You will hear from Anne about her Centre for Research Excellence. There are areas of economics of, about how to properly support people with disability and their families and their carers.
I am new to this portfolio but very much aware of the activities within it. It is a great honour to provide support from Jim's office and I look forward to hearing about the outcomes of today, and being involved in conversations about how we grow and develop this in the years ahead.
Again, my apologies for not being able to stay for the whole day. My very best wishes for a successful event. I look forward to hearing about the outcomes. Thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
DR ARSTEINKERSLAKE: Thank you very much, Mark, and Jim. I just wanted to now briefly go over the achievements of the DRI. In our relatively short life of twoandahalf years. I think, to do that, I need to first talk about the origins of the DRI a little bit more.
We absolutely wouldn't exist, and I think disability research at the University of Melbourne, would be much smaller without the initiative and support of Professor Bernadette McSherry and Charlene Edwards.
Like I mentioned before, it was in 2013 that Bernadette and Charlene, which is before my time, but they recognised the wonderful scholarship that is happening at the University of Melbourne in the research disability space and thought it was time to bring people together and have the forum, which I mentioned before.
Also, then, I think, new about the idea to put the Hallmark Initiatives together and really worked hard to have disability to be the focus of one of the first Hallmark Initiatives here at the University of Melbourne.
In 2014 when I was doing a research fellowship in Ireland at the National University in Galway, I got an email from Bernadette and Charlene saying they were successful in getting money for an initiative and that Melbourne law schoolwas interested in starting a clinic and would I be interested in those both things, I answered emphatically with 'yes', and quickly Googled 'academic convenor'. I had no idea what that meant. Most people don't. So I do spend a lot of my time explaining what it is.
Since I took on the role, we have accomplished so much. I will give a brief overview. If anyone is interested in a specific area, we have lots of information on our website. Also, any one of us is happy to talk more about our projects.
Um, we have an amazing team across the Melbourne Social Equity Institute, Scope, and all seven faculties of the University of Melbourne. We have done some kind of project or some kind of event with all the faculties.
We've had two seed funding rounds and we've funded 15 different projects again, all of them interdisciplinary. Some of those projects, even though it's only been a yearandahalf sense most of them were funded, since the first round was funded, many of those projects are already going on to apply for further funding and to build networks across Australia and internationally as well.
We have the Commonwealth fundedproject which looks at the criminal justice system in Australia and the interaction with people with cognitive disability and, in particular, Indigenous communities.
We have had two semesters of the Disability Human Rights Clinic at Melbourne Law School. Our third semester will be running this year. We have successfully delivered projects around the world including the UN Committees on Persons With Disabilities, the Human Rights Commission,. And we have setup the access to justice consortium, which we have hired a coordinator, who will be talking about that later today. It is looks at the research gaps and access to justice for people with disabilities in Australia.
Also setup a Disability Human Rights Research network, an international network, which we had two small grants that we got in 2015 and 2016. We were able to have the first two meetings of the network in those years.
We now have funding from the German Research Council for a third meeting of the network in Berlin this year.
We've also had over 25 events again, interdisciplinary. I think you can see that we've really met and exceeded our goals.
We've established a rich interdisciplinary community of researchers in Melbourne and beyond. I think... I'm really proud of all that work, of the researchers and the entire staff at the University of Melbourne that we've worked with. But I'm also really proud that what we've done has been innovative and groundbreaking, not just we've been able to stimulate so much but because of how we've been able to do that. All of our projects have a participatory research element and have a right space approach.
What that means is actually a lot simpler than it may sound. We've endeavoured to have all of our projects including events, seedfunded projects and large grant applications, respond to a need in the disability community, and not just something that we, as researchers perceive as a need, but something that the community has asked us to do. Or has called out for.
All of our projects have tried to respond to that in some way. They've also included the disability community as leaders, researchers or participants.
We have a project looking at choice and control in the NDIS. That's led by Helen Dickenson. That included people with disabilities from the community, being trained as researchers and then implementing the research.
We have advisory boards on most of our large research projects that are made up of people with disabilities and representative organisations. Those are the panels that guide our research both the design and the output.
The final point is that all of our outputs are aimed directly to meet the needs of the disability community.
This is really important and this is the unique thing we've done. There's lots of people around the world in different pockets that have done similar things, with the same goals, but I think this is one of the strongest interdisciplinary research hub in the world for that kind of participatory space. I am proud of that. We are doing research not for the sake of it but for social change. And not social change because we think social change is needed as researchers but because the disability community has asked for that change.
Today is a showcase of those different projects and I hope you will enjoy hearing from a number of different people that are working or are continuing to work or who have concluded projects that we've started from the Disability Research Initiative.
I am going to pass over now to Bernadette McSherry to provide reflections on the Disability Research Initiative, because Bernadette was one of the instigators of the initiative. So she will be able to give us a great overview of how far we've come. Professor Bernadette McSherry is the Foundation Director of the Melbourne Social Equity Institute and an Adjunct Professor in the Melbourne Law School. She is a legal member of the Victorian Mental Health Tribunal. She has degrees in arts, law and psychology. In December 2007 was appointed an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow. During 20132014 she was involved in a project on reducing seclusion restraint in mental health settings.
(APPLAUSE)
PROF McSHERRY: Thank you, Anna. I am director of one of five Institutes, the Melbourne social equity Institute which helps to support research aimed at ameliorating disadvantage in whatever form that arises. It has a particular focus on poverty and income inequality, refugee and asylum seekers, and communityled research.
As you heard, back in 2013, Charlene Edwards and I had the idea to just test the waters in relation to who was doing research on disability issues across the university. We thought there'd be about 10 people. So we organised a halfday people, 80 people turned up. That really, I think, goes to show what a vast University this is and the essential need to connect people who may be working on very similar issues.
So from that, the Disability Research Initiative was born. Before I go on to my reflections, I just want to pay a particular tribute to Dr Anna ArsteinKerslake. I first Anna some years ago now when she was doing a PhD in Galway at the Centre for Disability Law and Policy and she immediately struck me as being incredibly talented, energetic and someone who could just find a way through barriers. So when the opportunity came up for a position for her at the University of Melbourne, I was quickly on the phone and I'm so pleased that we were able to snaffle her because I think it is her drive and energy that has really achieved so much for this particular initiative.