Research

The Centre is committed to high quality research, offering specialised seminars and conferences and facilitating the exchange of experts. Working with the Lowy Institute, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and other leading Australian and US institutions, the Centre will generate new ideas and dialogue on major policy issues in the United States and Australia.

Through hosting joint workshops, seminars, and by conducting collaborative research with a focus on policy, the United States Studies Centre continues to enlarge its scope of expertise. Policy workshops and conferences will take the form of bi-annual analyses, resulting in the production of published papers. Proposed research topics include: Immigration, the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement, Energy Security, Bio-security, the US-Australian Alliance, Cities, American and Australian Mutual Perceptions, War and Society, Climate Change, Race, APEC and Surveillance.

RESEARCH GRANT WINNERS ANNOUNCED

The United States Studies Centre is pleased to announce that it has awarded research grants totalling $100,000 for ten projects on a wide range of topics in the humanities and social sciences by academics from nine Australian universities.

The chief executive of the US Studies Centre, Professor Geoffrey Garrett said the quality and breadth of all the research proposals was very impressive.

“Receiving ninety applications for the Centre’s inaugural round of research grants is testimony to the great interest in the United States among Australian academics and the high quality of research they are engaging in”, he said.

Professor Garrett says he was also particularly impressed by the quality of the American collaborators in some of the proposals.

Research grants were awarded to:

• “Care, Employment and Social Policy in Australia and the USA”
  Megan Blaxland, Research Associate in Social Policy, UNSW; Professor Deborah Brennan, UNSW; Professor Bettina Cass, UNSW; and Dr Ann Orloff, Northerwestern University;
• "Dear Father Abraham: Defining the rights and obligations of citizenship in Civil War America"
  Dr Frances Clarke, Lecturer in History, University of Sydney;
• “The US Heartland States - Economy, demography, culture, governance”
  Dr Paul Collits, Research Fellow in Global Studies, Social Science & Planning, RMIT;
• “The Political Worlds of Nineteenth Century Virginia”
  Professor Don DeBats, Professor of American Studies and Politics, Flinders University;
• “Demand Response in the Electricity Markets of the US”
  Dr Shu Fan, Research Fellow in Econometrics & Business Statistics, Monash University; and Dr. Wei-jen Lee University of Texas Arlington;
• “American English and Australian English”
  Professor Cliff Goddard, Professor of Behavioural, Cognitive and Social Sciences, University of New England;
• “Global Public Opinion and US Foreign Policy: Trends over time and soft-power consequences”
  Dr Ben Goldsmith, Senior Lecturer in Government and International Relations, University of Sydney, and Dr Yusaku Horiuchi, Senior Lecturer, Crawford School of Economics and Government ANU;
• “The Human Rights Revolution in the US: Forging a new foreign policy in the 1970s”
  Dr Barbara Keys, Lecturer in Historical Studies, University of Melbourne;
• “Californian Climate Change Law - Lessons for Australia”;
  Jacqueline Peel, Associate Professor of Law, University of Melbourne; and
• “Federal / State Relations in US Education Policy”
  Dr Louise Watson, Associate Professor of Education, University of Canberra and Assistant Professor Patricia Burch, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The Centre's monthly Research Seminar Series highlights academics' current research on the United States. Topics cover American society, culture, media, politics, business, law, politics and foreign policy. Seminars may have a contemporary or historical perspective

Call for presentations

The US Studies Centre welcomes proposals for presentations to be included in the series. Enquiries should be directed to

April 1-3, 2009 at the University of Sydney

The theme of the 2009 Symposium is New Thinking and Practice.

The Symposium’s aims to involve academia, industry and policymakers in bringing together theory and practice on entrepreneurship and innovation. Particular emphasis is placed on international dimensions within the Asia Pacific region.


The Symposium is a joint initiative of the United States Studies Centre and the International Entrepreneurship Research Group in the Faculty of Economics
and Business.

Academics, practitioners and policymakers operating in the region, especially those in Australia and the US are invited to propose papers and to participate.

A selection of papers will be published in a book by Edward Elgar.

A special emphasis of the Symposium will be presentations by business executives on innovation in their firms. Selected presentations will be included in the Symposium book in the form of short case studies.

Sponsored jointly by the US Studies Centre and the Faculty of Economics and Business

The United States Studies Centre is a member of the International Entrepreneurship Research Group (IERG) which undertakes research in entrepreneurship with an international and comparative focus.

The Centre's Professor McKern is a member of the IERG and of the organising committee for the Asia Pacific Symposium on Entrepreneurship and Innovation.