Opportunities

A world authority evaluates the full draft of a major research output (book, article, or NTRO) by a University of Sydney researcher and offers rigorous and constructive criticism to take the work from great to landmark.

Applicants must have a high-ranking publisher (or equivalent) in frame (ie: contracted or with an agreed deadline for submission) and a full draft of a manuscript (or equivalent) at the time of the review.

The UPR session has an invited audience of disciplinary peers, including postgraduate research students, who will also be given access to draft portions of the manuscript.

SSSHARC can provide funding to bring the expert reviewer to Sydney to allow for meaningful engagement around the manuscript and other research activities. UPR events may take place over Zoom by arrangement.

Review the Ultimate Peer Review guidelines (pdf, 107.5KB) and submit your expression of interest at any time.

• Associate Professor Dalia Nassar
  Reviewer: Professor Sebastian Gardner (UCL)
• Outcome: Book – Romantic Empiricism

Treacherous Play

• Dr Marcus Carter
  Reviewer: Professor Mia Consalvo (Concordia)
• Outcome: Book – Treacherous Play

A Victorian History of Modern Censorship

• Professor Chris Hilliard
  Reviewer: Professor Adrienne Stone (UMelb)
• Outcome: Book – A Matter of Obscenity

Stylistic Virtue and Victorian Fiction

• Dr Matthew Sussman
  Reviewer: Professor Helen Small (Oxford)
• Outcome: Book – Stylistic Virtue

• Associate Professor Charlotte Epstein
  Reviewer: Professor R.B.J (Rob) Walker (Victoria, CA)
• Outcome: Book – Birth of the State
  

All Marriage is Gay

• Associate Professor Lee Wallace
  Reviewer: Professor Robyn Wiegman (Duke)
• Outcome: Book - Reattachment Theory

A SSSHARC research huddle is a one-day collaboration intensive around an idea or question that is highly compelling but needs further articulation before it can be advance as a funded research program or other landmark outcome.

The aim of a huddle is not to present talks but to bring in an outside expert or experts who can critically guide the existing discussion towards a defined outcome, such as a joint grant application, a co-authored article, a book prospectus or a journal special issue proposal, a white paper or a high-profile opinion piece.

Review the research huddle guidelines (pdf, 106KB) and submit your expression of interest at any time.

Trauma-aware practices for children in out-of-home care

• Professor Amy Conley Wright
• External expert: Dr Mandi MacDonald (Queens, Belfast)
• Outcome: Trauma-informed family contact practice for children in out-of-home care, Collings, S., & Wright, A.C., McLean, L., & Buratti, S. (2021), The British Journal of Social Work, bcab147.

Boys: Towards an Affirmative Feminist Boys Studies 

• Professor Catherine Driscoll
• External expert: Professor Anoop Nayak (Newcastle, UK)
• Outcome: ARC Special Research Initiatives - Australian Boys: Beyond the Boy Problem

Working across difference and inequity in social work and policy studies

• Associate Professor Susan Goodwin and Professor Donna Baines 
• External experts: Dr Bindi Bennett (Sunshine Coast) and Dr Selma Macfarlane (Deakin)
• Outcome: Book - Working Across Difference

Community-led research methodologies: learning and knowledge building?

• Associate Professor Margot Rawsthorne and Professor Catherine Burgess
• External experts: Uncle Michael Welsh, Leslie Franks, Rob Roberts, Kerry Johnson, Julie Welsh, Blake Robinson, Uncle Kerry Mackenzie, Aunty Barbara McGrady
• Outcome: Book - Everyday Community Practice

A Pop-Up Research Lab is a three-week intensive program of activities specifically tailored to advance research that is already producing outstanding results and has the potential to be scale up into a landmark program attracting external support. 

Pop-Up Research Labs are usually planned in alignment with SSSHARC research nodes or in support of external grant ambitions, such as ARC Future Fellowships, Laureates and Centre of Excellence bids to be administered by the University of Sydney or projects aimed at international funding agencies. If you have an established program of research that fits this brief, please contact the SSSHARC Director to discuss possibilities. 

Sexual Violence in the Military

• Professor Megan McKenzie
• External expert: Dr Shannon Sampert (Winnipeg)
• Outcome: ARC- Future Fellowship ($1,052,328)

Brave New Law: Legal Personhood in the New Biosciences

• Associate Professor Sonja Van Wichelen
• External expert: Professor Thomas Lemke (Goethe University)
• Outcome: Personhood in the Age of Biolegality (Palgrave, 2020) ed. Marc de Leeuw and Sonja Van Wichelen

Critical research into death in contested circumstances

• Associate Professor Rebecca Scott Bray
• External expert: Professor Phil Scraton (Queen's University Belfast)
• Outcomes: Carpenter, B., Harris, M., Jowett, S., Tait, G., Scott Bray, R. (2021). Coronial Inquests, Indigenous Suicide and the Colonial Narrative. Critical Criminology, 29(3), 527-545. 
• Scott Bray, R. (2020). Contested Deaths and Coronial Justice in the Digital Age. International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 9(4), 90-103.

Launching in 2023, HISS@SSSHARC is designed to raise the international reputation of the University of Sydney in the area of sexuality studies via the provision of high-quality graduate masterclasses that will attract outstanding early-career researchers from across Sydney and other Australian and international universities. In 2023, HISS takes the theme Queer Age / Queer Youth and is timed to coincide with Sydney Mardi Gras and the Sydney WorldPride Festival, which will see thousands of LGBTQQI+ folk of all ages descend on Sydney from 20 February – 3 March.

In its first iteration, HISS@SSSHARC will completely reimagine the classroom from a queer perspective. The emphasis will be on creativity, collaboration and play. The Institute will bring together a teaching cohort of established and emerging researchers in sexuality studies who are committed to the provision of real-world graduate training.

Every year, we invite PhD students, postdoctoral researchers and early career faculty within 5 years of PhD conferral to apply. We welcome applicants from all disciplinary backgrounds and engage a broad understanding of sexuality studies that includes LGBTQI studies, queer studies, trans studies and their cognate fields.

HISS@SSSHARC selects around 25 participants. There are no fees associated with the Institute. Partial grants-in-aid may be available to those travelling to Sydney from elsewhere. Successful applicants are expected to fully attend the entire two-week program.

Applications for 2023 are now closed. Please follow us on Twitter for updates on the 2024 call for applications.

HISS will be coordinated by Lee Wallace who is the director of SSSHARC. The 2023 teaching cohort is drawn from across the full breadth of the humanities and social sciences. Confirmed contributors:

• Professor Jen Gilbert, Education (York University, CA)
• Associate Professor Adam Greteman, Art Education (School of the Art Institute of Chicago)
• Professor Scott Herring, American Studies, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (Yale)
• Dr Xavier Ho, Interactive Design (Monash)
• Dr Victoria Rawlings, Critical Education Studies (USYD)
• Professor Karen Tongson, Gender and Sexuality Studies. English, American Studies (USC)
• Professor Shane Vogel, Theatre / Performance Studies, African American Studies (Yale)