The Research School of Social Sciences building at the Australian National University - Image: Lannon Harley/ANU
The Australian National University (ANU) College of Arts and Social Sciences (CASS) has secured nearly $2.5 million in Australian Research Council (ARC) funding under the highly competitive Future Fellowships scheme.
Associate Professor Annika Lems and Associate Professor Ruth Morgan have each been awarded a four-year fellowship through which they will undertake ambitious research that will create benefits for Australia.
Lems, who is an anthropologist at the School of Archaeology and Anthropology (RSHA), will receive $1,166,358 for her project Rewilding, resistance, and belonging in Alpine landscapes.
She will investigate why rural communities resist conservation efforts using two emblematic case studies: the return of wolves in the European Alps and debates over wild horses in the Australian Alps.
The research will provide important insights into the roots of mistrust in environmental decision-making.
“Building inclusive, trusted environmental decision-making is essential to address climate change and ecological decline in Australia, particularly at a moment when mitigation efforts face growing public mistrust,” Lems said.
“By providing nuanced, evidence-based insights into the perspectives of rural Alpine communities profoundly affected by habitat loss, species decline and agricultural precarity, the project will create urgently needed tools for socially inclusive conservation and land management.”
Morgan, an environmental historian at the School of History (RSSS), will receive $1,328,083 in funding for her project Water-Proof: Exporting Australian water expertise to the world since 1949.
She will aim to deliver the first comprehensive history of water in Australian foreign aid since 1949, providing significant benefits such as enhancing policymaking and strengthening our country’s leadership in tackling the global water crisis.
CASS Dean Professor Bronwyn Parry congratulated the recipients on their incredible success.
“These very competitive and highly prestigious awards are so difficult to win and I extend my very warmest congratulations to them both,” she said.
“Their projects are powerful examples of how the humanities and social sciences can help us better understand and respond to some of the most pressing environmental challenges facing Australia and the world.”
More details are available at the ARC website.
