The Faculty of Arts has approved the establishment of four new Research Centres, reinforcing the Faculty’s commitment to world-leading research that addresses local, national and global challenges.

Centre for Research in Early Childhood Education
Director: Professor Sheila Degotardi
Led by Director Professor Sheila Degotardi, the Centre for Early Childhood Education Research comprises 14 early childhood education researchers from the School of Education. “The early childhood sector has the potential to significantly contribute to the lives and learning of young children and their families,” says Sheila. “Our Centre aims to research collaboratively with early childhood organisations to find new ways to build the capacity and resilience of the early childhood workforce and to enrich the learning experiences of children aged birth to five years.”

Creative Documentary Research Centre
Director: Associate Professor Tom Murray
The Creative Documentary Research Centre has brought together a dynamic cohort of 40 researchers from within the Faculty of Arts and across the broader University community. “We are thrilled that the Centre has been established in the Faculty of Arts. Documentary is an area of strength within the Faculty, and with the support of such a diversely talented and intellectually ambitious group of researchers we hope to foster an exciting, creative, and productive interdisciplinary research environment,” says Tom. “The Centre will support the excellence of researchers who already employ documentary methods, and will develop collaborations with those wishing to develop or engage documentary practices in their own diverse research-quests. We look forward to celebrating and investigating the personal, social and environmental conditions in which we live – through scholarship in audio, visual, screen-media, text, and combinations thereof.”

Centre for Energy and Natural Resources Innovation and Transformation
Director: Professor Tina Soliman Hunter
A new, multidisciplinary Faculty Centre has been established in Macquarie Law School. “The Centre for Energy and Natural Resources Innovation and Transformation (CENRIT) comprises members from Law, Engineering, Earth Sciences, Business and Biology, and will undertake leading research particularly in energy transformation including carbon capture and storage (CCS) and hydrogen,” says Tina.

Centre for Global Indigenous Futures
Director: Professor Bronwyn Carlson
The Centre for Global Indigenous Futures has grown from the work of the Forum for Indigenous Research Excellence (FIRE) which was established in 2015. FIRE brought together many Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers and provided a space where collaboration was encouraged and facilitated. In 2021 FIRE has re-established itself as the Centre for Global Indigenous Futures as it moves toward a more globally connected and focused research agenda. “The Centre for Global Indigenous Futures will explore the complexity of Indigenous life and identity in order to imagine futures in which Indigenous people are not only present but are thriving. We consider Indigenous love, joy, intimacy, sexuality, identity, care, relationality, representation and digital life and how these might emerge and evolve,” explains Bronwyn. “Through challenging entrenched research paradigms which understand Indigenous people solely through a deficit lens, the research conducted through The Centre for Global Indigenous Futures aims to open up possibilities and opportunities for Indigenous futures.”