News

New research centres

Seven new research centres will enhance ACU’s reputation in the arts, education, health, and theology and philosophy.

“The centres will build an academic culture consistent with our research intensification strategy, producing high-quality research that contributes to ACU’s ERA and world ranking outcomes,” said Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Greg Craven AO GCSG.

The following three centres will be affiliated with the recently formed Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences:

• The Gender and Women's History Research Centre will bring significant capacity in the early modern period and capitalises on ACU’s existing expertise in history, art, literature, and education.
• The Research Centre for Refugees, Migration, and Humanitarian Studies will explore the historical and contemporary displacement of refugees across the world, bringing together researchers with expertise in government policy on refugees and humanitarian agencies, the role of non-state actors including missionaries and churches, child refugees, and modern slavery.
• The Research Centre for Social and Political Change will address social and political change, social and political theory, and political and social mobilisation.

Four centres will advance research in our priority areas of education, health, and theology and philosophy:

• The Research Centre for Digital Data and Assessment in Education, affiliated with the Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education, will address a global knowledge gap in how new and emerging technologies are transforming the practices and experience of education in and outside schooling.
• The Research Centre for Sports Performance, Recovery, Injury and New Technologies (SPRINT) will advance knowledge in the areas of performance, recovery, and injury in the sporting domain using established and developing laboratory and applied research techniques.
• The Healthy Brain and Mind Research Centre will bring together three strands of research excellence in mental health, addiction neuroscience, and disability and development. The first seeks to promote the psychological wellbeing of individuals with serious mental health problems, the second strand maps the clinical, cognitive, and brain mechanisms of addiction, substance use behaviours, and related mental health problems. The third strand will design and evaluate innovative treatments to enable individuals living with chronic health conditions and impairment to reach their full potential.
• The Research Centre for Studies of the Second Vatican Council will advance understanding of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), considered the most significant event in the history of the Catholic Church in the 20^th century.

These seven centres, along with others still under consideration and development, will ensure ACU’s continued success as a world leading Catholic university.