postgraduate research progression scholarship in australian history

Endeavour Scholarships and Fellowships

Website: Endeavor Scholarships & Fellowships

Description

The Endeavour Scholarships and Fellowships are the Australian Government’s internationally competitive, merit-based scholarship programme that provides up to AU$272,500 for study, research or professional development opportunities between Australia and the world.

Endeavour Postgraduate Scholarship provides up to AU$272,500 for eligible non-Australians, including Americans and Canadians, to undertake a postgraduate qualification at a Masters or PhD level either by coursework or research in any field in Australia for up to four (4) years.

Endeavour Research Fellowships provides up to AU$24,500 for American and Canadian postgraduate research students and postdoctoral researchers to undertake 4-6 months of research in Australia.

Endeavour Executive Fellowship provides up to AU$18,500 professional development opportunities of (1 to 4 months) for high achievers in business, industry, education or government from eligible participating countries.

All recipients will receive:

• $3,000 travel allowance
• $2,000 (for fellowships) or $4,000 (for scholarships) establishment allowance
• $3,000 monthly stipend (paid up to the maximum programme duration on a pro-rata basis)
• tuition fees as shown in the tables , paid up to the maximum study/research duration on a pro-rata basis. Tuition includes student service and amenities fees
• other payments as shown in the table
• health insurance for the full programme duration (OSHC for non-Australians)
• travel insurance (excluding during programme for non-Australians)

What the programme offers:

As a scholarship or fellowship recipient, you will gain invaluable international experience in study, research or professional development. The Department has engaged a contractor to provide post-selection support services to all recipients including: a dedicated case manager; pre-departure briefings; provision of advice on health; travel insurance; accommodation; security; payment of allowances; and reporting to the Department on the recipient’s progress.

Eligibility

To be eligible to receive an Endeavour Scholarship or Fellowship, applicants must:

• be aged 18 years or over at the commencement of their programme 
• be a citizen and/or permanent resident of a participating country
• commence their proposed programme after 1 January 2016 and no later than 30 November 2016. Applicants who have already commenced or will commence their intended programme prior to 2016 are not eligible to apply
• provide all relevant supporting documentation
• not currently hold or have completed, since 1 January 2014, an Australian Government sponsored scholarship and/or fellowship (directly administered to recipients by the Australian Government)
• not apply for a category in which they have already completed an Endeavour Scholarship or Fellowship.
• a record of high-level academic achievement and/or relevant work experience in the applicant’s chosen field of study (40%)
• a well-defined study, research and /or professional programme (20%)
• statement on how the international study, research or professional development opportunity would further the applicant’s academic and/or professional career (20%)
• statement on how the international study, research or professional development opportunity will benefit Australia and the applicant’s potential to foster ongoing collaboration and cooperation with their home and host country (10%)
• statement in support of the applicant’s service to the community. Unpaid service within the applicant’s field of expertise or community service in outside capacities (10%).
• be citizens and/or an official permanent resident of Australia and must remain so for the duration of their programme
• not undertake their programme in a country where they hold citizenship/dual citizenship or permanent residency.
• be citizens and/or permanent residents of a participating country and remain so for the duration of their programme
• not hold citizenship/dual citizenship or permanent residency of Australia.
• Permanent Resident
• International or Other Visa Status

Applicants must read the following documentation before applying .

• 2016 Applicant Guidelines ( PDF  |  DOCX ) 
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
• Example of Application Form
• Example Referees Report
• Example Nomination Form 
• Example Letter of Enrolment
• Step by Step Guide to the Endeavour Online Application System ( PDF  | DOCX ) 
• Feedback for unsuccessful applicants in past rounds
• Information for organisations hosting Endeavour scholarship or fellowship recipients  ( PDF  |  DOCX ) 

Contact Information

Should you have any enquiries that are not addressed in the Frequently Asked Questions or the Applicant Guidelines please email [email protected] .

Please allow up to five to seven (5-7) working days to receive a response to your enquiry. 

Postal address

Award details.

Number of Awards: varies

Award Amount: varies

• November: Application closes: 11:59 pm Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time (AEDT) (~6:00AM PST on the same day)

Copyright © 2007–2024 University of Washington . Managed by the Center for Experiential Learning & Diversity , a unit of Undergraduate Academic Affairs .

Scholarships

• Our Scholars
• Eligibility

The Forrest Research Foundation works with our five partner universities to provide PhD scholarship opportunities for world-leading researchers from both across Australia and around the world. We provide our Forrest PhD Scholars with generous financial support, mentoring  and professional development opportunities to help them accelerate their career and go further than they imagined possible .

At Forrest Hall , we have created the most stimulating and inspiring learning environment where Scholars can live, learn and share ideas in a multi-disciplinary academic community.  

Forrest Scholars break with convention, push at boundaries, and go further than they imagined possible . They work with their PhD supervisors and research group to be at the forefront of world-leading research in their chosen discipline. Their research has the potential to change the world.

Each Forrest Scholar receives a scholarship package that includes fees, a stipend and accommodation at Forrest Hall in a luxury self-contained studio apartment. This scholarship package is valued at over AU$270,000 over a four-year period including:

• Research Training Program Stipend  

A Research Training Program (RTP) Stipend or equivalent university postgraduate research scholarship stipend valued at between $32,192 – $37,000 per annum in 2024 and indexed annually; the final value to be   determined by the enrolling university ; and

• Accommodation Allowance  

An accommodation allowance valued at $24,128 in 2024 and subject to annual indexation. The allowance is available to cover accommodation costs of a studio apartment at Forrest Hall. If a Forrest Scholar is granted a residency exemption by the Forrest Research Foundation Governors, the accommodation allowance may be used to contribute towards the cost of other residential accommodation. The Forrest Foundation endeavours to provide a 2-bedroom apartment to scholars with resident dependent children ( subject to availability) ; and    

• Relocation and Research Travel Allowance  

A research and travel allowance of up to $12,000 , plus a relocation allowance allowing for economy airfare to Perth for Forrest Scholar and immediate dependants. The research and travel allowance are available for approved research-related expenses, overseas research and conference travel.  

• International Forrest Scholars

International Research Training Program (RTP) Fees Offset Scholarship or equivalent university international fee scholarship which covers the full international tuition fees and overseas student health cover.  

• Domestic Forrest Scholars

Domestic Research Training Program (RTP) Fees Offset Scholarship which provides exemption from the requirement to pay tuition fees for the duration of the scholarship.  

Forrest PhD Scholarships are offered to candidates who have exceptional academic profiles, a commitment to engagement and impact, and who have the desire, drive and imagination to undertake doctoral research of the highest standard. Forrest Scholars will be among the top performing students in their undergraduate and graduate cohorts. There are no pre-existing research themes but candidates must undertake research at one of the five Western Australian based universities:

• Curtin University
• Edith Cowan University
• Murdoch University
• The University of Notre Dame Australia (Fremantle Campus)
• The University of Western Australia

Assessment criteria

• Applicants must have attained the English language admission standards of their chosen university prior to submitting their application. The duration of Forrest PhD Scholarships is up to 4 years, conditional on satisfactory progress. Forrest Scholars are expected to reside in an apartment in Forrest Hall (exemptions may be considered in special circumstances in accordance with the Scholarship Conditions). While the Foundation has no pre-existing research themes, occasionally we do identify areas to prioritise.
• Applicants must also submit an application for the Doctor of Philosophy at whichever Western Australian university they are hoping to complete their PhD. Please check the relevant university’s website for specific detail on their closing dates for applications for the Doctor of Philosophy.

Application process

Scholarships are available at all five western australian universities..

Forrest Scholarships are open to international and domestic students intending on enrolling in a PhD at a Western Australian university.

Note that we employ a multi-stage selection process drawing on the research officers of our partner universities. The final selection of successful applicants is undertaken by a Selection Committee which comprises eminent people from the research and broader communities drawn from the Forrest Research Foundation Selection Panel.

Please read the  Scholarship Conditions  before applying.

Documents required for the Forrest Scholarship application:

• Completed application form
• Curriculum vitae
• Copies of all academic transcripts
• Contact details for three referees – two or more academic (required) and one personal (optional
• Passport-sized photograph

Frequently Asked Questions

Click the “Apply” tab on the Forrest PhD Scholarship web page where you will be directed to the applications portal. This link will only be made available when the scholarship round is open.

All applications must be submitted online through the Forrest Research Foundation application portal. If you experience any issues submitting your application through the portal, contact the Forrest Research Foundation here as soon as possible.

Please note that, in addition to submitting your application through the Forrest Research Foundation application portal, you will also need to submit an application for the Doctor of Philosophy at whichever Western Australian university you are hoping to complete your PhD. Please check the relevant university’s website for specific detail on their closing dates for applications for the Doctor of Philosophy.

The Forrest PhD Scholarship round varies annually but it is usually in the last quarter of each year (typically applications open in September and close in October).

Applicants are required to provide contact details for three referees (at least two should be academic) – please note that referee reports will most likely be required only if you make the interview stage.

You should ask people who will best support your application. Where possible this should include your academic supervisors, colleagues, and key contacts who can provide relevant information about your academic achievements and professional attributes, especially in relation to the selection criteria. You are encouraged to provide referees that are not all from the same organisation, school or faculty. If you choose to nominate personal referees, they should be able to comment on personal characteristics and strengths as displayed, for example, in your extra-curricular activities at university, or in your previous employment. Personal referees should not be related to you.

Referees may be contacted directly by the Forrest Research Foundation once the application round is closed. Please note that referee reports will most likely be required only if you make the interview stage.

A Forrest PhD Scholarship may not usually be deferred. The Governors of the Forrest Research Foundation may consider a request for deferral by a successful applicant in extenuating circumstances. You will need to write a letter requesting any deferral directly to the Director of the Forrest Research Foundation, which outlines your specific circumstances, who will then discuss your formal request with the Governors.

There is no “formula” for a successful application. Each application should be about the particular candidate and the proposed research, while ensuring you also address the selection criteria and submit all formal requirements including uploading the documentation. Applications that are incomplete or don’t include an application form will not be considered. You should also ensure that you have obtained the approval of your proposed supervisor before submitting your application.

Remember: we are looking for candidates who are academically excellent, want to be part of our vibrant intellectual community, be curious and have a desire to engage with the public.

It is a requirement that each applicant contact their proposed supervisor to discuss their Forrest PhD Scholarship application and ensure they are willing to supervise you. It is recommended that you undertake this in advance of the application period (i.e., prior to September-October), to ensure that you have sufficient time to secure a potential supervisor and have discussed your planned research project. Applicants who do not have a supervisor will not be considered.

Please note that some universities require that you have more than one supervisor for your enrolment in the Doctor of Philosophy. Be sure to check the conditions carefully of your enrolling university.

The Selection Committee will seek the views of proposed supervisors prior to interviewing shortlisted candidates.

In order to be eligible to apply for a Forrest PhD Scholarship, applicants will need to have a Bachelor’s degree of First-Class Honours or equivalent (such as a Master of Research). You will also need a grade point average (GPA) of at least 3.8/4.0. Our applicants are typically in the top 5% of their graduating class, and you are encouraged to bring to the attention of the Selection Committee evidence of your academic achievement. The average GPA of current Forrest Scholars is greater than 3.95/4.00.

The Forrest Scholarship is open to domestic and international students. Successful international students will be offered an International Research Training Program (RTP) Fees Offset Scholarship or equivalent university international fee scholarship awarded by the nominated university.

Please check each partner university website as follows:

Curtin University https://www.curtin.edu.au/study/applying/english-language-requirements/

Edith Cowan University https://www.ecu.edu.au/future-students/course-entry/english-competency

Murdoch University https://www.murdoch.edu.au/study/how-to-apply/entry-requirements/english-proficiency-tests

The University of Notre Dame Australia https://www.notredame.edu.au/study/applications-and-admissions/admission-requirements/english-language-requirements

The University of Western Australia https://www.uwa.edu.au/study/how-to-apply/english-language-requirements

The Forrest Scholarship Conditions stipulate that, to be eligible, applicants must have applied for PhD enrolment as an internal student based at a Western Australian campus of one of the five specified Western Australian universities and not have been enrolled in the proposed PhD or previously undertaken research towards a PhD or other research doctorate.

No. Forrest PhD Scholarships are open to applicants from all disciplines.

No. Forrest Scholarships applications are a separate scholarship and therefore a separate application needs to be completed for each. Applicants need to ensure they contact their nominated university to discuss making a PhD and International Research Training Program Scholarship or Research Training Program application. Contact details for the different scholarship office can be found here:

Curtin University Edith Cowan University Murdoch University The University of Notre Dame Australia The University of Western Australia

Your success will not be determined based on your choice of supervisor or university. It is recommended that you nominate your proposed university and supervisor based on the research environment and facilities that are most relevant to your proposed PhD.

Please note that multiple applications will not be considered.

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• Annual Reports
• Forrest Hall
• University Partners
• Perth Dialogue

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• Scholarships to Study Abroad /

Endeavour Scholarship in Australia for International Students: A Complete Guide Here

• Updated on  
• May 13, 2024

The Endeavour Scholarship and Fellowships are the Australian Government’s internationally competitive, merit-based scholarship programme, offering up to AU$ 272,500 (INR 1.49 Cr) for study, research, or professional development opportunities in Australia and throughout the world. The Endeavour Postgraduate Scholarship is awarded to international students who wish to pursue a postgraduate qualification at the Master’s or PhD level in any discipline in Australia for up to two years for Master and four years for a PhD. Continue reading this blog to learn about the scholarship, eligibility, benefits, and more.

This Blog Includes:

Types of endeavour scholarships, objectives of endeavour scholarships, list of eligible courses, list of eligible countries, benefits and rewards, documents required, selection criteria, terms and conditions of endeavour scholarship.

There are majorly three types of Endeavour Scholarships given by the Australian government. These are:

• Endeavour Postgraduate Scholarships: For qualifying non-Australians, including Americans and Canadians, the Endeavour Postgraduate Scholarship gives up to AU$ 272,500 (INR 1.49 Cr) to pursue a postgraduate qualification at the Master’s or PhD level in any discipline in Australia for up to four (4) years.
• Endeavour Research Fellowships grant up to AU$ 24,500 (INR 13.40 Lakh) for postgraduate research students and postdoctoral researchers from the United States and Canada to do 4-6 months of research in Australia.
• Endeavour Executive Fellowships offer up to AU$ 18,500 (INR 10.11 Lakh) in professional development opportunities for exceptional achievers in business, industry, education, or government from eligible participating nations.

Must Read: Study in Australia: Comprehensive Guide

The Endeavour Scholarships and Fellowships aim to: 

• Develop ongoing educational, research, and professional links between individuals and organisations in Australia and selected partner regions and countries
• Provide opportunities for high-achieving individuals to increase their skills and global awareness; contribute to Australia’s position as a high – quality education and training provider and a leader in research and innovation
• Increase the number of Endeavour Scholarships and Fellowships awarded.

Must Read: PhD in Australia: A Complete Guide

Eligibility Criteria

The Endeavour scholarship is given to students who want to study at the Master’s or Doctoral level in Australia. Other eligibility conditions for the scholarship application, as well as a list of eligible nations and areas, are included below

• The applicant’s leadership involvement should not take place in a country where they have citizenship, dual citizenship, or permanent residency.
• He or she must be a native of the Americas, Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East, or the Pacific.
• International Individual Endeavour Leaders must carry out their activities in Australia and must not be Australian citizens/dual nationals or permanent residents.
• The candidate must be a citizen or a permanent resident of one of the participating countries.
• The candidate should begin the programme no later than January and no later than November.
• The candidate is not eligible to apply for a category in which he or she has previously received an Endeavour scholarship.
• He or she must be 18 years old or older at the start of their Leadership Activity.
• Other Australian Government-sponsored mobility, scholarship, or fellowship incentives should not be available to the candidate.

Given below is a list of courses that are applicable for the scholarship if you’re pursuing a master’s degree in any of them:

• Property & Built Environment
• Business & Management
• Creative Arts
• Teaching & Education
• Engineering & Mathematics
• Medical & Health Sciences
• IT & Computer Science
• Law , Legal Studies & Justice
• Humanities , Arts & Social Sciences

Must Read: Universities in Australia for PhD

Here is a list of countries and regions which are eligible for the scholarships. Refer to the table below to check if your country is part of the list or not.

The Endeavour scholarship provides the following scholarship benefits:

• The scholarship money is paid out over a period of up to two years for Master’s degree scholars and up to four years for PhD scholars.
• The PhD scholars are eligible for a total award of up to AU $2,72,500 (INR 1.49 Cr).
• The scholarship amount for Master’s students is up to AU $1,40,500 (INR 76.84 Lakh).
• Tuition fees of up to AU $15,000 (INR 8.20 Lakh) each semester are paid to accepted candidates.
• Individual short and long-term Endeavour Leaders who are successful will receive a stipend of AU$ 3,000 (INR 1.64 Lakh) per month (up to a maximum of AU$ 36,000 (INR 19.69 Lakh) per calendar year paid pro-rata up to the maximum category duration).
• Selected candidates will additionally receive a travel stipend of up to AU$ 3,000 (INR 1.64 Lakh) (with the option of up to AU$ 4,500 (INR 2.46 Lakh) in exceptional circumstances).
• The scholar got an establishment allowance ranging from AU$ 2,000 (INR 1.09 Lakh) to AU$ 4,000 (INR 2.18 Lakh), depending on the category and length of the award.
• Health insurance is offered to selected candidates for the duration of the category (Overseas Student Health Cover [OSHC] for international recipients).
• Travel insurance is supplied to selected students (save for international beneficiaries during the programme).
• International Endeavour leaders pursuing postgraduate qualifications (Master’s or PhD) are eligible for tuition expenses of up to AU$30,000 (INR 16.40 Lakh) per calendar year, paid on a pro-rata basis up to the maximum study/research length. Tuition includes costs for student services and perks.

Must Read: Undergraduate Academic Excellence International Scholarship in Australia

Application Process

A step-by-step guide to applying for the Endeavour scholarship is provided below:

• There won’t be any more rounds of the Endeavour Leadership Programme (ELP), according to the Australian government. 
• As part of the qualifying requirements, applicants must submit a letter of admission ( offer letter ) for a Master’s or Graduate Diploma leading to a Master’s degree or for a PhD course at an Australian university for the 2019 academic year.
• Applications must be submitted using the Endeavour Online (EOL) portal. 

To apply for the Endeavour scholarship, you must have the following documents:

• Evidence of nationality
• If appropriate, permanent residency
• Academic transcripts and the results of the most recent qualifying examination
• IELTS / TOEFL scores are used to demonstrate language ability.

Must Read: Australia Awards Scholarship

All categories of Endeavour Scholarships and Fellowships have the same selection criterion. The selection criteria for the scholarships are as follows:

• A track record of outstanding academic accomplishment and/or appropriate job experience in the applicant’s field of study (40%)
• A well-defined research, study, and/or professional programme (20%)
• A statement describing how the international study, research, or professional development opportunity will help the applicant’s academic and/or professional career (20%)
• Statement on how the international study, research, or professional development opportunity will benefit Australia, as well as the applicant’s ability to create continuous engagement and cooperation with both their home and host countries (10%)
• Statement in support of the applicant’s community service. Unpaid service in the applicant’s field of competence or community service in other capacities (ten per cent).

The following are the terms and conditions for the Endeavour scholarship:

• Recipients must meet any special restrictions mentioned in the Department’s offer letter and sign a contract with Austraining International formally consenting to the terms of their scholarship before the programme begins.
• The candidate must be a citizen or permanent resident of one of the participating countries and must stay so for the duration of the programme.
• Unless otherwise approved by the Department, candidates must complete the programme stated in their application for at least the minimum period and no more than the maximum time stipulated in the applicant requirements.
• The recipient’s programme must take place in his or her designated host country.
• The candidate should not travel to a country or region of a country that has received a travel advisory from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
• It is the recipient’s duty to accept an Endeavour scholarship or fellowship and travel abroad. 
• All programme fees that exceed the recipients’ Endeavour benefits are the responsibility of the recipients. The term of funding for each Endeavour scholarship or fellowship type is specified.
• The recipient’s offer and contract may be terminated at any time for misconduct, failure to comply with host country laws, breaches of the conditions (including misuse of funds), failure to follow host organisation rules, and/or failure to make satisfactory academic progress. 
• When it is deemed appropriate, the Department may temporarily halt a recipient’s programme. During periods of suspension, monthly stipends are not paid.
• Candidates are not permitted to receive any other Australian Government-supported scholarship or fellowship benefits (directly administered to recipients by the Australian Government) throughout their programme. Recipients of an International Postgraduate Research Scholarship (IPRS) or an Australia Postgraduate Award (APA) must follow the terms and conditions of their scholarships.
• To decide whether they are permitted to work for pay throughout their programme, recipients must request permission from their host organisation and confirm the terms of their visa . Endeavour Except in extraordinary situations with Department consent, Research, and Executive fellowship recipients are not permitted to work at any time throughout their programme.
• Postdoctoral candidates must have received their PhD and received their final results prior to the start of their programme.

The Endeavour Scholarships and Fellowships aim to strengthen Australia’s reputation for excellence in education provision, to support the internationalization of the Australian higher education and research sectors, and to provide opportunities for high-achieving individuals from both overseas and Australia to increase their productivity and expertise in their field.

The Endeavour Scholarships and Fellowships are administered by the Department of Education and are part of the Australia Awards project, which brings together scholarships granted by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research.

Must Read: 5 Reasons to Study in Australia

Ans: The Australia Awards-Endeavour Scholarships are competitive, merit-based scholarships offered by the Australian Government to international students for study, research, or professional development in Australia .

Ans: Tuition fees of up to AU $15,000 each semester are paid to accepted candidates. Individual short and long-term Endeavour Leaders who are successful will receive a stipend of AU$ 3,000 per month (up to a maximum of AU$ 36,000 per calendar year paid pro-rata up to the maximum category duration).

Ans: You must be an unsponsored, full-fee-paying student. At your prior academic level, you must have a minimum grade point average of 75%. It is necessary to have a valid student visa for Australia. You must attend a full-time regional university campus in Australia.

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NAA/AHA Postgraduate Scholarships

National Archives of Australia/Australian Historical Association scholarships assist talented postgraduate scholars with the cost of copying records held in the Archives. For example, scholars may be based in one city and want to see records located in an Archives office in another city. Assistance with digital copying costs will provide access to material that might not otherwise be possible.

Students enrolled in a Masters or PhD degree in history are invited to apply.

Four scholarships are awarded annually, with applications opening 1 March and closing 5pm 31 March each year.

Guidelines and procedures can be found on the National Archives of Australia website .

© 2021 Australian Historical Association

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School of History

Research Centres

• Australian Centre for Indigenous History
• Centre for Environmental History
• National Centre of Biography
• Research Centre for Deep History

ARC Laureate Program

• Rediscovering the Deep Human Past

Related Sites

• ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences
• Research School of Social Sciences
• Australian National Internships Program
• Australian Journey
• One Hundred Stories

You are here

Graduate research degrees, how to apply, find a supervisor.

To undertake a graduate PhD research degree in the School of History the first step is to contact the HDR Convenor and a potential supervisor.

Please see our people for each staff member's research fields .

Prepare a thesis research proposal according to the template provided

The second step is to prepare a PhD thesis research proposal. It should provide a clear sense of your research project, its aims, its viability and its originality. Proposals should be a maximum of 1,000 words (exclusive of your bibliography).* Please use the Bold  words and phrases as the template for your proposal:

Your full name

A short descriptive title for your project

The object of inquiry (i.e. the aim and key questions that focuses the research)

A clear indication of your project’s scope (e.g. time period to cover, sites to consider, objects to document and analyse, populations to study etc.)

A description of your key sources  (e.g. the number and nature of subjects to analyse; the location and accessibility of data)

A review of the methodologies to be deployed, and a rationale for their use in light of the object of inquiry, your project’s scope and the data to be analysed

A review of your project’s historiographical approach and contribution (in light of existing contributions to your field)

An indication of your project’s originality (in terms of the nature of the inquiry, and/or the project’s scope, and/or its empirical base, and/or its selected methodologies, and/or its theoretical perspective)

A select Bibliography (highlighting key works that inform your study).

*Note: the University's generic on-line application form calls for a one-page proposal. However, to be considered for the graduate research programme in the School of History you must follow these guidelines and submit this proposal with your application.

Apply for admission

Australian and new zealand citizens.

To apply for admission into the PhD graduate research program as a domestic student and follow this link:

http://www.anu.edu.au/study/apply

For more information on PhD and MPhil applications in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, please visit http://cass.anu.edu.au/study/higher-degree-research/applications .

Applications to the School of History's PhD program must be submitted with the program code: 9520XPHD

Reports from three referees are essential and applications without them will not be considered for admission.

Your referees must use the form accessible at the bottom of this page ('resources'): http://www.anu.edu.au/study/apply/anu-postgraduate-research-domestic-and...

It is best to contact prospective referees well in advance of application deadlines, and to ensure that they can comment on your proposed research as well as your academic background. Ideally, referees should be academics familiar with your qualifications; however, past supervisors from industry, who can comment on your independent research and writing capacity, may also serve as referees. Please check with your prospective supervisor or the HDR Convenor if you are unsure about the qualifications of your referees.

• Scholarships

The University deadline for Domestic Scholarship applications is 31 October. However, application files should be completed by mid-October in order to be processed by the School of History's rankings and admissions committee

RSSS Director's special top-up scholarship for the top-ranked applicant in the Research School -- $20,000 per annum ( details here )

International Applicants

The University deadline for International Scholarships is 31 August. However, application files should be completed by the beginning of August in order to be processed by the School of History's rankings and admissions committee. Information for international applicants, including fees, living expenses, and scholarship advice is available here.

To be eligible for admission, applicants should hold a BA (Hons.) in History at an H2A level or equivalent. However, applicants with prior training in related disciplines or a master's degree that includes a significant research component may also qualify for admission if they have the appropriate training to undertake a thesis and the appropriate project and supervision.

Further information

For further information on graduate research degree study in the School of History please contact Professor Martin Thomas , the HDR Convenor.

For further information on the Coursework graduate research students must complete in the School of History see http://history.cass.anu.edu.au/current-students/current-phd-and-mphil-students

Additional Resources

• Programs and Courses
• College of Arts and Social Sciences student pages
• Additional Funding: Hokari Scholarship
• Accommodation

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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that the National Archives' website and collection contain the names, images and voices of people who have died.

Some records include terms and views that are not appropriate today. They reflect the period in which they were created and are not the views of the National Archives.

Postgraduate scholarships

On this page, terms and conditions, how to apply, submitting an application, current and former recipients.

The National Archives of Australia/Australian Historical Association scholarship helps postgraduate students with their research costs.

Recipients use the scholarship to request digital copies of records for viewing on the National Archives' website.

Students based in one city can access records held in a National Archives' office in another city. They don't have to travel to access this material.

Eligibility

The scholarship is for postgraduate history students who are doing research towards a master's degree or PhD.

Recipients are acknowledged as 'National Archives of Australia/Australian Historical Association postgraduate scholars'.

We award 4 scholarships once a year, giving each recipient $2375 credit towards digitisation of whole paper files from our collection. The credit is based on our current copying charges (GST included)

Recipients view the digital images via our collection catalogue, RecordSearch, as part of our digitisation service .

During the 12-month scholarship period, each scholar will receive:

• a designated reference officer to assist them
• access to original records in the research centre where the records are held, if they choose to visit
• priority examination of records not yet cleared for public release.

While we complete most examination within a month, it may take up to 90 business days and sometimes longer to examine some files. We will let you know if there are going to be delays. Read more about access to records under the Archives Act .

Please note that Australian Government records held in the collection of the Australian War Memorial (AWM) are excluded from this scholarship. These records have an 'AWM' prefix in the series number on RecordSearch.

Requirements

Recipients must make digital copy requests within 12 months of receiving the scholarship.

If reproducing collection material, they must observe copyright obligations , and acknowledge and cite source materials.

Each recipient will produce a brief piece of content relating to the topic of their research and the records accessed. This could take a variety of formats, such as an article for the National Archives' website or a public seminar at one of our offices. The exact nature of this contribution will be negotiated individually with each scholar.

Two representatives from the Australian Historical Association and one representative from the National Archives select recipients. The committee's decision is final.

Successful applicants will be selected based on consideration of a number of factors, including:

• the scholarly achievements of the applicant relative to opportunity
• the research value of the proposed research
• the records required for the proposed research
• the location of the applicant compared to the location of the records they have identified.

To apply, provide the following information using the structure below:

1. Personal details

• your home address and contact details
• the university you attend
• enrolment date and whether full- or part-time
• a curriculum vitae that includes details of noteworthy achievements — for example, previous degrees, professional awards, conference papers or published articles

2. Research project

• title of your research project
• a 1 to 2 paragraph summary of your project, including how you plan to share and publish your completed work — for example, chapter of thesis, journal article, web page, conference paper or creative project
• how your research project will use records in the National Archives’ collection
• a list of the records you intend to use – listed at item level where possible – including the access status of the items (i.e. Open, Open with exception, Not yet examined)

3. Reference

We require a written reference by the due date. The reference should address your:

• qualifications, ability, achievements and potential
• previous research quality
• research value of the proposed project

There is one application round each year.

• Applications open: 1 March
• Applications close: close of business 31 March
• Awards announced: July

Send applications to :

Joshua Black Administrative Officer Australian Historical Association PO Box 1118 Dickson ACT 2606

Email: [email protected]

Niamh Hanrahan

Niamh Hanrahan is a PhD student at the University of Manchester in the UK, based in the Humanitarianism and Conflict Response Institute. Her PhD project is titled Beyond Europe: Jewish Journeys and Humanitarian Aid in Japan (1931-1953), covering a history of movement by Jewish refugees from Europe to Japan. Niamh was the postgraduate representative for the British and Irish Association for Holocaust Studies in the 2022/23 academic year. She has published research in blogs for the academic website Refugee History and for The Holocaust Centre North and has been awarded fellowships to conduct research in the USA, Germany, Japan, and Australia.

Project topic

Searching Beyond Europe: Tracing WWII Jewish Refugees from Japan to Australia in the National Archives of Australia

Project summary

Niamh's PhD thesis focuses on Holocaust-era Jewish refugees who made the journey from Europe to Japan to escape Nazi persecution and the aid networks which assisted them in this. Her research within the National Archives of Australia gathers further information on the onward journeys of these individuals, from Japan to Australia. It will focus on Jewish refugee passengers on the Kasima Maru, a ship which sailed from Japan to Australia in July 1941.

Elysha Rei is a PhD Candidate in the School of Creative Practice, at Queensland University of Technology.

How can Nikkei Australian identity be archived through contemporary paper cutting arts practice? (*‘Nikkei’ is a Japanese word used for Japanese diasporas and their descendants and is now used globally to unite Japanese diasporas from across the world).

Project Summary

Rei's project investigates transcultural identity that is imbued with the ambivalence of pride in Japanese cultural heritage, intergenerational remnants of pain from racial discrimination, and the experience of inhabiting a third space where ‘the negotiation of incommensurable differences creates a tension peculiar to borderline existences’ 1 . Expanding upon a paper cutting practice of 18 years, a new direction of work is being investigated where the materiality of paper and its connection to paper records and historical documents, are playing a role in the creative process and conceptual development of the work. Using archival records as a starting point for mapping Japanese Australian history, Rei's work intertwines documented histories, oral histories and cultural remnants that archive silent narratives of a Japanese-Australian migration and Nikkei identity in Australia in hand-cut paper artworks.

Access to records at the National Archives of Australia will be critical for creative and scholarly investigations surrounding Japanese Australian history – particularly with internment, repatriation, and war bride migration under the Immigration Restriction Act 1901. Digitised records will be used as points of visual references for artworks in paper cutting; primary source materials for a written exegesis that covers Japanese Australia history from the 1940s to 1950s; and contribute to the Past Wrongs Future Choices digital research infrastructure that documents and disseminates historical understanding of the mistreatment of people of Japanese descent during WWII and post-war contexts in allied countries.

1 Bhabha, H.K., 1994. The location of culture, Routledge, London, p. 218.

Anna Wilkinson

Anna is a PhD candidate in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University.

Marriages between Australian servicemen and Asian war brides in occupation between 1945 and 1975.

Anna's project seeks to analyse the marriage of Australian servicemen and Asian war brides in occupation between 1945 and 1975. She posits that war bride marriages are a new framework to understand the (re)emergence of Asian-Australian diasporas nearing the end of the White Australia Policy. The case studies of the Allied Occupation of Japan, the Malayan Emergency and the Vietnam War reveal much about Australian military occupation in Asia during the Cold War and decolonisation. The post-marriage migration experience of Japanese, Malayan and Vietnamese women provides insight into Australia’s changing migration policy towards its non-white neighbours and societal attitudes toward Asian women within Australia.

The National Australian Archive records are central to Anna's project, which seeks to understand how Asian-Australian war bride marriages were controlled by the military and government, perceived by the public and experienced by the couples themselves. The archive houses official government policy and correspondence related to Asian-Australian marriages, as well as the marriage files of couples, migration records of women and military service records of Australian servicemen who served during this period.

Renzhe Zhang

Renzhe Zhang graduated with an Honours degree in History from the University of Queensland. He is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Wollongong and his research topic is about the influence of the New Culture Movement on the Chinese Diaspora in Australia from the 1900s to the 1930s. This study investigates how the Chinese community was shaped by Australian social pressure and Chinese intellectual debates.

The New Cultural Movement and the Chinese Diaspora in Australia, 1910s-1930s

Renzhe's project aims to analyse the transformation of Chinese-Australian identity with the influence of White Australia and Chinese patriotism from the 1910s to 1930s. This period witnessed the New Culture Movement in China, which was a succession of debates centred on vernacular Chinese, individual liberty from the family, women’s emancipation, criticism on religion and superstition, and advocation of democracy. The ideological disputes in the Chinese community revealed how Chinese-Australian leaders constructed their leadership with their diverse ideological stances in the community. The influence of this ideological struggle on the overseas Chinese communities in America and Southeast Asia has been explored, 1 but no focus has been put on Chinese Australians. This period also witnessed concerted efforts to build Chinese-Australian communities with the leaders' patriotic mobilisation, either by legally fighting to change the immigration restriction or physically constructing community facilities such as the Chinese schools and restaurants.

Renzhe investigates public debates and community events to examine how the intellectual debate impacted transformation of the Chinese-Australian identity. His current research has found that the N.S.W. Chinese Chamber of Commerce and the Australian branch of the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang, KMT) played key roles in the intellectual debate in Australia during that period. The Chamber published the Tung Wah Times and the KMT published the Chinese Times and endorsed the Chinese Republic News . Pro-KMT editors published iconoclastic propaganda and argued China’s tradition was an obstacle for Chinese to achieve free and equal rights. However, the Chamber advocated advancing Confucianism to promote social stability and civil loyalty. Both sides witnessed China in upheaval and had opposite opinions about China’s future during the early twentieth century.

1 Ching Fatt Yong & R.B. Mckenna, The Kuomintang Movement in British Malaya, 1912 – 1949 (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1990); Ching Fatt Yong, The Origins of Malayan Communism (Singapore: South Seas Society, 1997), pp. 65– 78; David L. Kenley, New Culture in a New World: The May Fourth Movement and the Chinese Diaspora in Singapore, 1919- 1932 (New York: Routledge, 2003); Ching-Hwang Yen, The Chinese in Southeast Asia and Beyond: Socioeconomic and Political Dimensions (Hackensack: World Scientific Publishing, 2008).

Holly Dayton

Holly is a PhD candidate at Northwestern University.

Cultural commerce: Making the British world in Australia, 1850 to 1975

Holly's project will explore how media business shaped cultural connections between Australia and Britain from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. She will study how entrepreneurs succeeded or failed to control markets for media, attempting to shut out competition from domestic and other international sources. The case studies examined in the project are:  Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management , the garden literature of William Robinson and Gertrude Jekyll, Gilbert & Sullivan's operas, interwar tabloids and newsprint, and Monty Python's Flying Circus .

Her works seeks to illustrate the importance of entrepreneurship and contingency in Anglo-Australian cultural history, as well as to emphasise the critical role that private media businesses played in the broader political project of the British world.

Loredana Giarrusso

Loredana Giarrusso is a PhD Candidate at Latrobe University, Bundoora. Loredana has a legal background and her research interests include Australian Indigenous policy and political history, colonial history, constitutional reform, treaties and comparative studies of Indigenous affairs of New Zealand and Canada.

Indigenous people and the Commonwealth: An investigation of Commonwealth government policies of 1972 to 1996 towards upholding Indigenous affairs policies.

Project summary

Loredana's project uses the conceptual framework of the 'colonial problem' in examining the Commonwealth experience of Indigenous affairs policy from 1972 to 1996. It explores the interactions between the Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke and Keating governments and Indigenous peoples by analysing broad areas of Indigenous affairs policy.

Her study considers the progression of policies of self-determination, self-management, land rights, treaty and reconciliation in the era under investigation. These policies are considered in the context of what they reveal about the relationship between the Australian state and Indigenous peoples.

Her project constructs an analytical narrative of the failure of national governments to adequately address Indigenous affairs policies. It attempts to understand why there has been a continual failure of national governments to maintain Indigenous affairs policies that provide for the representation of Indigenous peoples’ interests.

Jennifer Rose

Jennifer is a PhD candidate at the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University.

Migrant rights activism in Melbourne and the development of multiculturalism and public culture, 1940s to the 1980s.

Jennifer’s project is an historical investigation of migrants' rights activism in Melbourne and its role in shaping the development of multiculturalism and public culture from the 1940s to the 1980s. A historically significant time that saw a cultural and political shift away from government policies that advanced an assimilationist approach to settlement to policies oriented towards multiculturalism. Her thesis examines migrants' rights activity within the historical context of local urban settings and evolving community/public sectors of the time.

Stories of the success of multiculturalism in Australia readily credit politicians and policy architects, overlooking the foundational work over decades of migrants' rights activists who resisted assimilation, campaigned for equality and created social networks of support for migrants. This research explores the historic importance of 'on-the-ground' activity in realms such as education, welfare services and the workplace undertaken by migrants' rights activists and their allies to respond to local community need and create social change that shaped public culture, public institutions, and the lived reality of multiculturalism in Melbourne.

Susanna Quitmann

Susanne Quitmann is a doctoral candidate in modern history at LMU Munich, Germany, and a research associate in the DFG-funded project The Voices of British child migrants, which is associated with the Munich Centre for Global History. Susanne studied history, global history, and political science at the University of Heidelberg, Royal Holloway University of London, and Yale University.

The Children’s Voices: A New Approach Towards the History of British Child Migrants Sent to Canada and Australia (1869 to 1960s)

Susanne’s PhD project analyses children's voices in history using the example of children sent to Australia and Canada under the British child migration schemes (1860s to 1960s). Examining how historians can attend to marginalised actors' voices, the project ties in with Subaltern Studies, Global History, and Childhood Studies. It aims at refining the analytical concept of 'voices' to use it to analyse the experiences of British child migrants. Rather than limiting the analysis to voices’ narrative dimension, Susanne's research examines the dimensions of both narrative and sound/form of verbal as well as nonverbal voices. In doing so, it considers the contexts in which children's voices were and are heard, suppressed, and (mis)used throughout the decades.

The National Archives records are central to Susanne’s project for adding the Australian perspective and analysing child migrants' voices in legal and institutional processes (e.g. in decisions on migration/deportation and in the inspections of institutions receiving child migrants). They also allow further examination of archives' engagement with or silencing of children’s voices.

Louise Thatcher

Louise is a PhD candidate at the University of Potsdam, Germany.

Spaces of bordering along the shipping routes between Bremen and Australia across the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Louise’s project will explore the history of immigration control practices as they developed along the shipping routes between Australia and Germany between the turn of the twentieth century and the interwar period. 

The project will look at laws passed and how controls over the movement of people were enforced: the techniques that customs and port officials, police, immigration bureaucrats, shipping agents and ships’ captains used to identify desirable and undesirable migrants, identify and track individual travellers, detect and deter clandestine migrants and control the movement of maritime workers. While much of the history of migration controls is written within national contexts, Louise will follow the path of work that analyses the emergence of the modern border regime as a global history: specifically, as a history grounded in colonialism and the construction of racial boundaries.

Vashti is a second year PhD student at the University of Western Australia, studying twentieth century Australian history. 

Never again: anti-fascism in post war Australia (1955 to 2018).

Vashti’s project will trace continuity and change in anti-fascist campaigning in the period since the Second World War up until the beginning of the Trump presidency. Her research explores six case studies, organised chronologically, to gauge the relationship between Australian anti-fascism and four phenomena. These are the far right itself, different radical leftist political currents, broader anti-racist social and trade union campaigns and international trends in anti-fascist activism. 

Given the global rise of Antifascist movements (‘Antifa’) in recent years, this is a topic of considerable academic and public interest in Australia and beyond. While there are previous analyses of far right politics, and pre-war anti-fascism, Vashti’s research is unearthing valuable new stories and perspectives that are extremely valuable for thinking through the present moment.

Marcus James

Marcus is currently a candidate for a Doctor of Philosophy at the Australian National University, Centre of Arab and Islamic Studies (Central Asia and the Middle East).

Project title

Mechanics fleeing communism: the Russian refugee diaspora in Iran and its resettlement in Australia, 1930 to 1960.

Marcus’ project will explore the Russian refugee diaspora in Iran that developed between the two World Wars and which then emigrated to Australia and the United States in the 1950s. 

To date there have been no substantive studies of this strand of the post revolution Russian diaspora, either internationally or for Australia. Most research has concentrated on Russian refugees from China and the displaced persons camps in Europe. 

Marcus will intensively utilise the records of the National Archives concentrating in particular on the immigration and naturalisation records and Alien Registration books for identified families. Families were identified from the Archives shipping and aircraft arrival records including some 30 Russian (including Ukrainian) families, comprising over 100 individuals that came to Australia from Iran between 1948 and 1960 and who did not arrive as displaced persons.

Julian Kusabs

Julian is currently a candidate for a Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Adelaide. Julian is a Māori historian and educator with a passion for Indigenous cultures and knowledge systems. Julian is currently researching the history of citizenship education for Māori, Aboriginal, and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

A comparative history of citizenship education for Māori, Aboriginal, and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.

Julian’s project will compare how ideas of civic identity have been taught to Māori, Aboriginal, and Torres Strait Islander peoples in European education systems from 1814 to the present. His thesis will draw on longitudinal case studies to evaluate Indigenous engagement with, and resistance to, educational structures in light of our own social ideals, systems, and protocols.

Julian will combine a historical methodology with an innovative Maori theoretical framework in order to interpret the past in ways that include Indigenous knowledge and perspectives. The Commonwealth Governments’ involvement with the Northern Territory administration means that there are many records held in the collection of benefit to his project.

Yianni Cartledge

Yianni Cartledge, PhD Candidate, Flinders University

Biographical Note:

Yianni Cartledge is a candidate for PhD at the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Flinders University, under supervision of Associate Professor Andrekos Varnava and co-supervision of Professor Philip Payton. His PhD thesis explores the migration of Greek islanders, particularly from the Aegean Sea, to the Anglo-speaking world during the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.

Yianni’s research interests include migration and the migrant experience, South Australian history, the British and Ottoman Empires, and the history of modern Greece, which can be seen through his Honours dissertation focussing on British Christian-humanitarianism during the 1822 Chios Massacre. An article originating in his Honours thesis, ‘The Chios Massacre (1822) and early British Christian-humanitarianism’ was published in the Historical Research journal in February 2020.

Project Summary:

Yianni's project explores the migration of Greek Aegean islanders to the Anglosphere between 1815 and 1930, focussing in particular on two corresponding case studies: the first being Greeks from the island of Chios emigrating to London (1815-1880s), although spreading to other parts of Britain, including Liverpool and Manchester; and the second being Greeks from the island of Ikaria settling in South Australia (1900-1930), most notably in Adelaide, Port Pirie and the towns of the South Australian West Coast. The study will discuss the reasons for emigration, methods of community building and integration into their respective places of settlement.

It is the hypothesis of Yianni's research that these migrations reflect the major political and economic world events of the period, local ethnic and national identity tensions between newly formed Greece and the Ottoman Empire, migration trends and policy in the Anglosphere, as well as the individual struggles, challenges and identity crises of early migrants. This will illustrate that these histories are linked and resulted in a significant early Aegean islander migration to the West.

Items held in the National Archives of Australia will be paramount to Yianni’s research, as they will help uncover record of the arrival, settlement, employment, naturalisation and even conscription of early Aegean migrants, as well as demonstrate how these migrants navigated the government policies and procedures of the time. The records will also provide a paper trail of migrant sponsorships that indicate how ‘chain migration’ was used to build communities.

Bolin Hu, PhD candidate, University of Auckland

Topic: All for China: The Propaganda Efforts of the Chinese Government and Community in Australia, 1931–1945

Biographical note

Bolin Hu is a PhD candidate in the History Department, School of Humanities at University of Auckland, New Zealand. His project, supervised by Associate Professor Malcolm Campbell and Professor Paul Clark, examines the transnational history of the Nanjing government and Chinese Australian community making propaganda efforts to gain the support of both Australian government and people during the Sino-Japanese War and Pacific War. Bolin’s research interests include histories of medicine, Sino-Australia relation, and Chinese in Australia and New Zealand before 1949.

Bolin’s project explores the propaganda efforts made by the Chinese government and community in Australia, mainly focusing on how they motivated Chinese residents and local Australians to participate in China’s anti-Japanese war in 1931–1945. Their publicity activities reveal the complicated interplays between Chinese community, Nanjing government, and local Australians, providing a new understanding of wartime propaganda.

Since the Mukden Incident in 1931, Chinese diplomatic representatives for Nanjing and overseas Chinese in Australia actively started propaganda campaigns to appeal to their counterparts and local Australians to support China’s war efforts. After the beginning of the Pacific War and the alliance between China and Australia, Chinese propaganda in Australia was increasingly officially controlled. The publicity policy also switched from exposing Japanese atrocities to building up a positive image of China, such as its strong war capability and the enhanced status of Chinese women. Meanwhile, the Australian general public gradually split into pro-China and pro-Japan groups through the 1930s and competed for public support. This dispute faded away with the outbreak of the Pacific War, and the pro-China group reached its peak in the 1940s when a series of associations were set up with the support of Chinese officials.

Through the National Archives of Australia, combined with recorded oral history, Bolin intends to access records, particularly the documents of the Department of External Affairs and the Chinese community in Australia. These documents will constitute an integral part of Bolin’s multi-archival research, including records held in Nanjing and Taibei, which will reveal aspects of the Chinese war propaganda efforts in Australia that are currently poorly understood.

Julia Russoniello

Julia Russoniello, DMA candidate, University of Sydney

Julia’s project will explore classical music performance in Australia in the early twentieth-century. The research undertaken will assist with understanding the performance traditions of Australian violinists during the 1900–1950 era.

Topic: Looking Forward, Listening Back. Australian violinists of the Golden Age rediscovered through performance markings and historic sonic information.

Biographical note:

Sydney-based violinist and researcher Julia Russoniello is a current doctoral candidate at the University of Sydney. Specialising in historical performance, Julia has studied with leading historical performer-researchers Daniel Yeadon and Neal Peres Da Costa and has performed in masterclasses for internationally renowned historical violinists, Stephano Montenari, Federico Gugliemo and Elisa Citterio.

Julia has performed with the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra, Sydney Philharmonic Orchestra, Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Bach Akademie Australia, Pinchgut/Orchestra of the Antipodes, Salut! Baroque and the Golden Age Quartet and has been recorded live for ABC Classics, Fine Music 102.5 and Phoenix Central Park.

Julia’s research project explores classical music performance in Australia in the early twentieth century. The scarcity of recordings of Australian artists 1900-1950 raises the question of how musical performances actually sounded and how musical notations were understood and interpreted by players of the time. Through the examination of pedagogical texts, concert reviews, concert programs, annotated scores, radio broadcasts, and audio recordings, this research project will shed light on the performing traditions of Australian violinists of this era.

The performance style of classical musicians shifted dramatically during the twentieth century. Widespread recordings from this era reveal the use of outdated modes of musical expression including extreme fluctuations in tempo, prominent portamento, pitch scoops and selective, fast vibrato. Whether these, and other expressive characteristics were part of the Australian musical ‘dialect’ is an important question, the result of which could inform interpretations of Australian music composed in this period. This research will not only enhance our understanding of the ways in which musical expression was understood and delivered in the early twentieth century, but it will augment our current understanding of the history of musical practices in Australia.

The documents and recordings obtained through the National Archives of Australia will be used in the analysis of local performing traditions and will be disseminated into a creative performance of Australian violin music from this era. Notated and annotated music as well as sonic information in this collection, will serve to establish evidence of fingering choices, bowing conventions and modifications to tempo and rhythm used in this period. The personal papers and Australian authored violin methods in the National Archives of Australia are unique sources that provide a snapshot of traditions hitherto unexamined by present-day performers and researchers.

Kate Kirby, PhD Candidate, University of the Sunshine Coast

Kate’s project will explore and investigate an era of significant change and development in Australian sports history organisation, with the shedding of proud amateur mindset for national and state government investment in sport policy.

Round 2, 2019

Ilona fekete.

Ilona Fekete, PhD candidate, University of Queensland

Topic: War criminals and political extremists in the Hungarian diaspora in Australia (1950-)

Ilona Fekete is a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland. Her dissertation examines case studies of identity maintenance within the Hungarian diaspora in Australia, investigating the evolution of national imagery and demonstrating the significance of this dynamic relationship to identity maintenance.

Ilona holds degrees in history and art history, and recently worked as the manager of the Commissariat Store Museum, Brisbane. Her research interests include diaspora heritage and diaspora nationalism.

In the past, Ilona focused on medical history and illustration, with special regard to the relationship between institutional training and textbooks for medical surgeons at the end of the 18th century. Beside a wide variety of Hungarian publications, one of her articles was published in Early Modern Science and Medicine .

Between 1947 and 1954 more than 13,000 Hungarians relocated to Australia in the wake of World War II. Some of these New Australians were previously members of the extremist Arrow Cross Party, or 'Hungarist Movement', in Hungary. After emigrating, several former Arrow Cross members occupied leading positions in Hungarian diaspora or Australian extremist organisations in Australia. Other former Arrow Cross members or sympathisers lived under the radar in Australia for decades, committing themselves to subsidiary roles in the Hungarian community.

The project will document the extent and influence of the Arrow Cross in Australian Hungarian diaspora organisations. Due to a variety of sensitivities, prior research has shied away from investigating this subject. As such, the presence of extremists remained an ‘open secret'. However, the presence of extremists was crucial to the negotiation of Hungarian identity within the diaspora movement. 

Ilona's research analyses practices of identity-making in Hungarian cultural festivals, national days and objects that enable communities to embody the nation, as well as the impact of Australian assimilatory and multicultural policies, and recent efforts by Hungary’s 'new-nationalist' Fidesz government to influence the identity of the diasporic community in Australia.

The holdings of the National Archives of Australia are crucial to the success of the project. The National Archives holds extensive records concerning the background and activities of several key Hungarian extremists, as well as their influence on later diaspora movements. Additionally, they shed light on the attitudes of the Australian government and Hungarian community organisations to the presence of potential war criminals in the country.

Hirokazu Matsui

Hirokazu Matsui, PhD candidate, Deakin University

Topic: True complementarity? Australia, Japan and multilateral aid, 1952–1967

Hirokazu Matsui is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Arts and Education, Deakin University. His PhD thesis will examine how Australia perceived and reacted to change in Japan's international status in the early Cold War era, from a former enemy to a significant economic power which was expected to play some part in regional affairs in Asia, such as providing aid to developing countries.

He is interested in the history of Australian foreign policy, especially Australia-Japan relations and Australia's multilateral diplomacy. As a masters student, Hirokazu wrote on Australia's foreign policy regarding the creation of the United Nations, including the award-winning article ' The Australian Labor Government and the Creation of the United Nations: Discussions over the Criteria for Electing Non-Permanent Members of the Security Council '.

He is also a member of Contemporary History Research Group at Deakin University.

Post-WWII Australia-Japan relations started from a position of lingering hostility. Nonetheless, in the 1950s and the 1960s, Australia and Japan found some common regional interests as they were both members of the Western bloc of the Cold War and developed countries in the Western Pacific. This fact, while often being overshadowed by rapid growth of bilateral trade, has been acknowledged by scholarly literature on Australia–Japan relations. Some of the literature mentions cooperation between Australian and Japan at the regional level, including through regional organisations, but there has been no detailed examination of the way in which Australia and Japan cooperated, the results of this cooperation and its limitations.

Hirokazu's project, which is a part of his broader thesis, fills this gap. His project focuses on Australia's policy towards Japan with particular reference to regional organisations which were involved with the provision of aid to developing countries in the region. These organisations include the Colombo Plan, the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East and Asian Development Bank. His project will closely examine how Australia-Japan relations were played out within these multilateral frameworks and also how bilateral relations influenced the way in which these organisations functioned. This research will investigate areas of agreement as well the factors that limited or hindered cooperation between Australia and Japan, thereby testing whether the narrative of economic complementarity that dominates the historiography of Australia–Japan relations in the post-WWII era is applicable to this underappreciated but important field.

The scholarship will allow Hirokazu to access to records held by National Archives, especially documents of the then Department of External Affairs regarding  Australia’s policy towards regional organisations involved in aid to developing countries and its communication with the Japanese government. These documents will constitute an integral part of Hirokazu's multi-archival research, which will also include records held by Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan.

Round 1, 2019

Madeleine regan.

Madeleine Regan, PhD candidate, Flinders University

Topic: Establishing family market gardens and transplanting Veneto identity to the western suburbs of Adelaide, 1920s to 1970s

Madeleine Regan is a PhD candidate in the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Flinders University, Adelaide.

Madeleine’s research interests include oral history and its role in documenting narratives of individuals and communicating knowledge of under-represented groups. A further area of interest is the use of digital media to record the history of women and communities in the context of migration to, and settlement in, Australia. An oral historian and secretary of Oral History Australia SA/NT, Madeleine has coordinated oral history projects with Italian communities, local government and educational organisations.

Madeleine’s project focuses on the migration and settlement of a small group of people who emigrated from two provinces in the Veneto region of Italy and settled in Adelaide from the late 1920s. It explores the context of individuals in Australian migration history through oral histories, archival research and the digital transmission of a migrant community history. While considerable research has been undertaken on post-World War II Italian migration, less information has been published about the origins and settlement history of small regional groups in Australia between the wars.

The experience of the 17 men and 1 woman and their families who became commercial market gardeners in urban Adelaide has been compiled through 58 oral history interviews recorded with family members who arrived as children, and second-generation family members.

Records in the collection of the National Archives of Australia will supplement the oral histories. Madeleine intends to use records relating to applications for naturalisation, purchase of land, conscription of men into the Civil Aliens Corps and other ‘enemy alien’ records to provide deeper understanding of the circumstances of individual migrants.

Beth Marsden

Beth Marsden, PhD candidate, La Trobe University

Topic: ‘Education for what?’ Schooling, mobility and Aboriginal people in Victoria in the mid-twentieth century.

Beth Marsden is a PhD candidate in History at La Trobe University, Melbourne. Her doctoral project investigates the history of Indigenous education in Victoria in the mid-twentieth century. Beth is interested in historical and present-day Indigenous education in Australia, histories of childhood, Indigenous resistance and mobilities, as well as contemporary education policy and curricula. Her published work has appeared in the History of Education Review, is forthcoming in Aboriginal History, Australian Historical Studies, and in an edited collection from Aboriginal Studies Press which explores the history of Aboriginal exemption.

Using archival and oral history interview methodologies, Beth’s research utilises the growing theoretical framework of Indigenous mobilities to explore the experiences of Indigenous youth attending school in Victoria in the mid-twentieth century. The project focuses on both primary school education and post-compulsory schooling. It examines how Indigenous youth engaged with state school systems in rural areas of Victoria, and how their mobility was influenced by various factors including; family and kin, employment, housing, and avoidance of government interference. It also draws out connections between post-compulsory schooling in Victoria and the broader educational networks and pathways that were utilised by Indigenous youth and their families.

This research centres the experiences of children who moved to Victoria for the purpose of attending school. It develops a framework for understanding how the mobility of Indigenous children operated on a national level, through the cooperation of numerous state government departments, and via the networks between schools, institutions, government agencies, missions and church administrators.

Beth’s project aims to generate new understandings of the experiences of Indigenous students attending school in the state of Victoria and nationally.

Round 2, 2018–2019

Rob Konkel, PhD candidate, Princeton University

Topic: Building Blocs: Raw Materials and the Global Economy in the Age of Disequilibrium

Rob Konkel is a PhD candidate in the history department at Princeton University. His dissertation, supervised by Professor Jeremy Adelman, examines the significance of raw materials to the interwar global economy. Prior to beginning his PhD, Rob completed a B.A. in history at the University of Saskatchewan, and an M.Sc. in economic and social history at Oxford University where he was supervised by Professor Deborah Oxley. His master's thesis, a history of the World Bank's conceptualization of poverty, was published by The Journal of Global History as " The Monetization of Global Poverty: the Concept of Poverty in World Bank History, 1944-90 ." Rob has also spent several years with the Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation as a Research and Policy Analyst.

Rob's dissertation charts a global history of the interwar period by putting trade, finance, and geopolitics at the centre of a story about rivalries over strategic raw materials, especially metallic minerals. Modern industry required steady supplies of tungsten, manganese, bauxite, and other minerals but deposits were scattered around the world and no state or empire was fully self-sufficient. The First World War had underscored the importance of securing access to metallic minerals and highlighted the threat of resource scarcity. Indeed, the dangers of resource exhaustion weighted heavily on state officials and industrial interests alike, and material difficulties contributed to German, Italian, and Japanese expansionism. This scramble for raw materials links together questions about imperialism, tariffs and quotas, cartelisation, the gold standard, and the splintering of the world into hostile trading blocs.

The world of the interwar years was instable, polycentric, and rife with economic imbalances. While the League of Nations and the nexus of international institutions clustered around Geneva created an image of a seamlessly integrated global economy tethered together by trade and finance, this image was at odds with the reality of war debts, reparations, plunging commodity prices, and trade imbalances. Citizens and business interests alike called for less global economic integration, and states carved out spheres of influence to secure access to scarce resources. This research will focus primarily upon the British and American cases, comparing the British preferential trading system with its dominions and the American proclivity toward internal commodity chains. Rob will also pay attention to producers of primary products like China, Canada, and Australia, which had to navigate the volatility of global markets and rising geopolitical tension.

Australia was a significant international player during this time, but its role is understated in the extant historical literature. Australia occupied a key position in the Anglo-American world due to its production of scarce strategic minerals and foodstuffs, and its geostrategic position in the Pacific. Both Great Britain and the United States lacked domestic deposits of key metallic minerals, making the mineral potential of Australia of paramount importance. By 1930, exploration was well underway in Australia, and investment was directed toward extraction. Rob will examine these issues using records in the collection of the National Archives of Australia, particularly records of the Department of External Affairs, the Prime Minister's Department, the Department of Trade and Commerce, the Mines Branch, Lands and Mines Department, and those related to the exploitation of Aboriginal lands.

Jessica Stroja

Jessica Stroja, PhD candidate, Griffith University

Topic: From War Zones to New Homes: A Longitudinal study of Refugee Resettlement and Experiences in Queensland

Jessica Stroja is a PhD Candidate at Griffith University, where her thesis focuses on experiences of conflict and migration, particularly Displaced Persons and children resettled in Queensland following the Second World War. Her First Class Honours research looked at Australian responses to the Finnish Winter War. As a historian, she specialises in the areas of migration, conflict and local history, with an interest in community engagement with refugee and migrant experiences. Jessica maintains a strong interest in museums and heritage, and is the volunteer Resident Historian at Historic Ormiston House, a historic home in the Redlands region, where she works with the community to provide beneficial research outcomes for both the historic home and its visitors.

Following the Second World War, the mass displacement of refugees in Europe was the largest refugee crisis that the world had experienced to date. The resettlement of Displaced Persons in Australia during this period was also the largest wave of migration the country had experienced up to that point in time. Jessica's project focuses on the resettlement of Displaced Persons and their children in Queensland following the Second World War. In particular, this project addresses the resettlement experiences of Polish, Latvian and Ukrainian Displaced Persons who were resettled in various Queensland regions.

This project assesses the significance of displacement, encampment and violence for refugees in non-culturally diverse locations, and considers the way in which Displaced Persons' involvement with the Department of Immigration and other government agencies influenced their resettlement experiences and memories. With a particular focus on children who were resettled as refugees in Queensland during this period, the project highlights the legacy of these experiences for families and children, and reveals the way in which this legacy continues to have ongoing implications for refugees throughout resettlement.

Using records in the collection of the National Archives of Australia, combined with fifty newly recorded oral histories, Jessica intends to access records surrounding the resettlement of Displaced Persons in Queensland, and official policies related to their early resettlement experiences. This will allow the project to develop a greater understanding of the ongoing effects of displacement and resettlement in areas of low cultural and linguistic diversity and, in particular, the way in which these circumstances and events affect various domains of life for refugees.

Round 1, 2018–2019

Laura rovetto.

Laura Rovetto, PhD candidate, Victoria University

Topic: Peace Activism, Community Mobilisation: the social and political agency of the Campaign for International Cooperation and Disarmament, 1960-1985

Laura Rovetto is a history PhD candidate in the School of Arts and Education at Victoria University. Her thesis, supervised by Emeritus Professor Phillip Deery and Associate Professor Dianne Hall, examines the role of the Campaign for International Cooperation and Disarmament (CICD) in the Australian peace movement from the 1960s until the 1980s. Her Honours thesis, which examined CICD's approach to activism during the first Melbourne Vietnam Moratorium Campaign, from 1969-1970, was a key component in her being awarded both the 2016 Victoria University Medal for Academic Excellence and the Centenary Postgraduate Research Scholarship.

Laura's project seeks to explain the significant contribution of the CICD to the Australian peace movement over a twenty-five year period. It argues that the effectiveness of the CICD was due to its willingness to resolve tensions between its defining, yet contradictory, features: on the one hand, its commitment to broad inclusion and extensive collaboration; on the other, its hierarchical organisational structure and its embrace of particular ideological positions.

Since its formation at the 1959 Melbourne Peace Congress, the CICD has been a continuous and coherent organisation. It fostered a particular set of community values and developed networks of local community alliances for the organisation and mobilisation of mass peace, disarmament and anti-nuclear protests. The historiography of the Australian peace movement during this period, has generally focused on student and youth activism and has neglected the CICD. This project will, therefore, represent the first scholarly analysis of the organisation and will contribute to redressing a significant gap in the history of grassroots political activism in post-war Australia.

Through the National Archives of Australia, Laura intends to access records created by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) concerning the CICD and its lineal predecessors, the Australian Peace Council and the Australia and New Zealand Congress for international Cooperation and Disarmament. ASIO records will represent a crucial counterpoint to CICD's organisational records by providing insight into "official' perspectives on the CICD and illuminate the scope and character of the organisation's activities.

David Saunders

David Saunders, PhD candidate, University of Hong Kong

Topic: Intra-imperial connections: Australia's involvement in North Borneo's post-war reconstruction and colonisation, 1945–63

David Saunders is a PhD candidate researching South-East Asian, global and imperial history at the University of Hong Kong. His dissertation examines the history of British North Borneo after the Second World War and its transition towards decolonisation and merger with Malaysia. He has previously studied at the University of St Andrews, and has spent time as a visiting research student at King's College, London.

David's project examines British North Borneo after the Second World War, focusing primarily on the under-studied impact of Australian military, administrative and later economic involvement in the territory between 1945 and 1963. North Borneo's liberation, official incorporation into the British Empire as a crown colony before eventually merging with Malaysia, reveals a pattern of shifting administrations and ever-extending foreign incursion.

Through an analysis of documents pertaining to the post-war British Borneo Civil Affairs Unit (primarily staffed by Australian administrators), as well as files relating to trades of commodities such as oil, rubber, copra and tobacco, this project will show how Australia's involvement in North Borneo after the war represented a significant yet under-examined period of intra-imperial connection.

The loss of colonial power during the Second World War provided Australians with an opportunity to further participate within Britain's declining imperial system. Similarly, the geographic positioning of Borneo, as a focal point within South-East Asia, rendered the territory important to Australian politicians in a way that differed to typical British colonial policy. Upon liberation in 1945 it was seen as a potential buffer zone against future Japanese aggression, and later as a key point of entry into South-East Asia's rapidly growing economies.

Using files held in the National Archives' collection, this project will build upon a wider PhD thesis considering the history of North Borneo after the Second World War, and the various forms of competing foreign involvement in the territory.

Round 2, 2017–2018

Kathryn avery.

Kathryn Avery, PhD candidate, Federation University

Topic: An oily stepping stone: Portuguese Timor, Japan and Australian security, 1902-1941

Kathryn Avery is a Research Priority Area PhD scholarship holder in the Collaborative Research Centre in Australian History at Federation University Australia. Her thesis focuses on the Australian government’s concerns over Japanese intentions in Portuguese Timor prior to the outbreak of the Pacific War. Kathryn's broad research interest is the history of Australian foreign policy, with a particular focus on Australian-British and Australian-Japanese relations. Kathryn also forms part of the history teaching team within the School of Arts at Federation University Australia.

Situated within close proximity to Northern Australia, the small yet strategically important colony of Portuguese Timor played a significant role in Australian security considerations during the first half of the twentieth century prior to the outbreak of the Second World War in the Pacific. To date, understandings of Australian interests in Portuguese Timor have focused on the Japanese occupation period between 1942 and 1945, as well as the more recent history in Timor-Leste with respect to tensions over access to oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea. The significance of Portuguese Timor to Australia prior to the outbreak of the Second World War has received scant attention.

Australia's leaders feared for their nation's security should the colony fall into Japan's sphere of influence. Kathryn's thesis will explore the origins of the strategic significance of Portuguese Timor to Australian security, as well as the measures pursued by Australia's leaders to counter Japanese penetration of the colony, within the context of British Imperialism and the wider international crisis of the time. Further, it will examine inconsistencies in Australian policy that sought to appease Japan during its expansion into China, while taking a firmer stance in checking the Japanese when closer to the Australian mainland.

Lea Doughty

Lea Doughty, PhD candidate, University of Otago

Topic: Military Medicines: military pharmacy and medicine supply to the Anzac forces, 1914-1918

Lea Doughty is a PhD candidate at the School of Pharmacy, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. Her project, supervised by Dr Susan Heydon, Professor Darryl Tong (Otago) and Dr Peter Hobbins (University of Sydney), examines the experience and role development of ANZAC military pharmacists and the supply of medicines to the troops during World War I. She is particularly interested in the intersections and tensions between institutions of conflict and health.

Medicines are usually invisible and taken for granted until suddenly they are not available. As such, the practice of pharmacy within a military context and the supply of medicines and therapeutics during times of conflict are areas of historiography that have been overlooked.

Trade in medicines was one of the earliest industries to be globalised, and Germany was the main supply for synthetic drugs such as aspirin, phenacetin, the anti-syphilitic Salvarsan, Veronal and formalin, all of which were developing and became available from the late nineteenth century. Medical-grade opium for the production of morphine was sourced from Turkey. At the outbreak of war in 1914, access to these products by the Allies was abruptly curtailed, resulting in immediate shortages and potential direct medical consequences.

The records in the National Archives' collection will be used to underpin aspects of the supply chain that are currently poorly understood. It is anticipated that the records will help to illuminate the process of purchasing from external suppliers, as well as the logistics involved in shipping through the lines of communication to the end destination. The availability of these records, in turn, may be of ongoing value to medical, military and economic historians seeking to understand the clinical, political and commercial basis for large-scale pharmaceutical manufacture in early twentieth-century Australia.

Round 1, 2017–2018

Miranda francis.

Miranda Francis, PhD candidate in History, La Trobe University

Topic: Why did Mrs 'Smith' send a submission to the Royal Commission into Human Relationships? Family life in 1970s Australia

Miranda Francis is a history PhD student in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at La Trobe University. Her project, supervised by Katie Holmes and Ruth Ford, examines mothering in post-1945 suburban Melbourne. It is based on life-history style interviews with women aged over 60. She is particularly interested in the interplay between contemporary oral evidence and archival records and has written about this: ' One woman’s crèche is a bureaucrat’s child-minding centre: "The Flat" at Footscray High School 1976–1986' in Provenance: The Journal of Public Record Office Victoria , vol 15, 2016–17.

This project is to look at Justice Elizabeth Evatt's personal papers associated with the Royal Commission on Human Relationships (established by Federal Parliament on 21 August 1974) and in particular the individual submissions to the Commission.

It is part of a larger PhD thesis on parenting in post-1945 Australia which is founded on oral history but calls heavily on written archives. The core of the thesis is in-depth interviews with 30 women aged over 60. Many of these women were parenting in the 1970s and contemporaries of the people who sent submissions to the Royal Commission on Human Relationships. Indeed two interviewees in the project were members of activist groups, the Women's Electoral Lobby (WEL) and the National Council for Single Mothers and their Children (NCSMC), who prepared formal submissions.

These submissions present an opportunity to hear the voices of everyday Australians talk about their lives. Examining these submissions will give insights into the family relationships at the everyday level which could deepen historical understandings of the changing social behaviour and cultural values in 1970s Australia. These voices can be missed with more institutional type histories. Digitising some of this rich collection will make the material more accessible for researchers interested in both the submission’s content as well as understanding how individuals have responded historically to Royal Commissions. This is particularly relevant when considering the emphasis on personal testimony by the current Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Sexual Abuse.

Holly Taylor

Holly Taylor, PhD candidate, University of Washington

Topic: Preserving Places That Matter: The Origins of Social Value in Australian Heritage Conservation Policy

Holly Taylor is a PhD candidate at the University of Washington in the College of Built Environments Interdisciplinary PhD program. Her dissertation examines preservation policy and practice related to community values and the cultural significance of historic places. She holds degrees in cultural anthropology and architecture history and theory, directs a heritage consultancy founded in 2003, and also serves as an affiliate instructor for the University of Washington Department of Urban Design and Planning.

In the context of the fiftieth anniversary of the 1966 US National Historic Preservation Act , Holly will explore how historic preservation protects places that people actually care about. Studies of the development of U.S. federal preservation regulations reveal perspectives limited to historical, architectural and archaeological values. In contrast, the Australian Heritage Commission Act 1975 and the subsequent 1979 Burra Charter recognise social significance as a core value, along with aesthetic, historic and scientific significance, providing an important alternative approach to conservation philosophy and research methods.

A key aspect of Holly's research seeks to understand the historical origins of the concept of social value, and how it was introduced into Australian heritage discourse during the Hope Inquiry process. Two general inspirations for social value are widely recognised: Aboriginal activism associated with self-determination, and union activism of the Green Bans movement. However, the specific sources for how these movements were translated into public heritage policy in Australia in a way that gave legal standing to community values remain unclear.

Holly intends to access records associated with the Committee of Inquiry into the National Estate (1973–74) chaired by Justice Robert M Hope, to understand how public submissions may have informed the Committee's recommendation to include social value among Australia's criteria for assessing heritage significance. This will provide greater insight into the role of community activism in shaping Australia's innovative approach to social value as part of the National Estate, which in turn influenced UNESCO world heritage policy. Although Australian federal policy has since shifted away from considering community significance, this historical study of social value will build an argument for adopting a similar policy in the US more than 40 years later.

Round 2, 2016

Bethany phillips-peddlesden.

Bethany Phillips-Peddlesden, PhD candidate, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne

Topic: Women and Politics: Maternalism, Party Politics and Political Wives

Natalie Fong

Natalie Fong, PhD candidate (Philosophy), Griffith University

Topic: ' Fresh Off the Boat': Chinese Merchants and Transnational Connections between China, Hong Kong and Australia

Natalie Fong is a PhD candidate in the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science at Griffith University. Her thesis examines the roles played by Chinese merchants in organising the Northern Territory Chinese during the period 1880–1920, such as protests against discrimination, and their interactions with European business and political leaders. Natalie is descended from two prominent Northern Territory Chinese patriarchs – Wing Wah Loong (Fong How/Fong Sui Wing) and Low Dep Chitt. She is also a secondary school English and history teacher, and the Head of English and ESL at Citipointe Christian College, Brisbane.

Natalie Fong argues that Chinese transnational business networks, building on historical trade and facilitated by advances in transport and communication, were a key factor in the initial dominance and success of the Chinese in the Northern Territory.

In the late 1800s to early 1900s, Chinese merchants from the southern Guangdong region of China dispersed all over the world, thanks to the busy port of Hong Kong. They established familial, transnational business networks – a model that divided assets and divided risks. This safety net helped secure their success. One place that they established businesses was the Northern Territory in Australia. By the late 1800s, the Chinese had become numerically and economically dominant. Chinese merchants capitalised on the long history of trade between northern Australia and south-east Asia, as well as Darwin’s accessibility from Hong Kong by steamship, to import and export goods and people. These networks may also have serviced Chinese businesses elsewhere in Australia, such as Sydney, Melbourne and Bendigo, and throughout south-east Asia.

Natalie intends to access records relating to key Chinese merchants and their business dealings, to shed further light on how these networks may have operated. This will provide a fuller picture of Chinese business dealings in Australia and internationally. She will also explore historiographical concepts such as imperialism, transnationalism and ‘sojourning versus settling’.

Round 1, 2016

Jo Grant, PhD candidate (History), Griffith University

Topic: Internationalism and the ‘Primitive’ during the 1950s: Julian Huxley’s, Arnold Toynbee’s and Clyde Kluckhohn’s Tours to Aboriginal Missions in the Northern Territory

Jo Grant is a PhD candidate in the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science at the Nathan campus of Griffith University.  Her dissertation examines the Australian lecture tours of several public intellectuals, particularly Bertrand Russell and Julian Huxley, during the early 1950s, and discusses the significance of these tours to the history of ideas of Australia.

Jo Grant will examine the visits made by prominent internationalists to several Aboriginal and Indigenous missions in the Northern Territory during the early years of the Cold War, including anthropologist Clyde Kluckhohn, zoologist Julian Huxley, and historian Arnold Toynbee.

At a time when racial ideologies were being globally contested alongside a growing humanitarian concern about minorities after the Second World War, government policy in Australia was shifting towards the assimilation of Aborigines into European settler society.  Paul Hasluck, the Federal Minister for Territories, invited Kluckhohn, Huxley and Toynbee to spend several weeks in the Northern Territory to witness the ‘civilising project’ in practice while they were in Australia on lecture tours for the Australian Institute of International Affairs.

Through an outline of these mission tours, this project will discuss how Aborigines and Indigenous peoples featured in the internationalist imagination during the 1950s.  It will ask how the encounters of these internationalists with Aboriginal Australians, mediated through the mission space, reveals the ways in which ideas of the ‘primitive’ circulated around the world in the thought of Kluckhohn, Huxley and Toynbee, and how their thinking was shaped by their travels.

Katherine Roscoe

Katherine Roscoe, PhD candidate (History), University of Leicester

Topic: Island Chains: the transportation of convicts to islands around colonial Australia, 1788-1901

Katherine Roscoe is a PhD candidate in the School of History at the University of Leicester, United Kingdom. Her thesis examines the transportation of convicts and prisoners to islands surrounding the Australian mainland. Her research interests are colonialism and imperialism, the history of crime and punishment, and maritime history. Katherine works as part of the European Research Council project the ‘Carceral Archipelago’, which is the first global history of convicts and penal colonies from 1415 to 1960 (convictvoyages.org).

In 2014 she received an Australian Bicentennial Scholarship from the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, King’s College London, to undertake research in Sydney and Perth. She has published ‘“Too many kill ’em. Too many make ’em ill”: the Commission into Rottnest Island Prison as the context for Section 70’ in a special issue of Studies in Western Australian History (vol. 3, 2016), and co-edited a special issue on 'Networks in Imperial History' , Journal of World History (vol. 3, no. 4, 2015).

Katherine Roscoe argues that the transportation of European, Aboriginal and Chinese convicts to offshore islands was essential to the colonisation of the vast Australian mainland. Using prison records and colonial office correspondence as the primary source material, six chapters shift the historical lens to the peripheries of Australia. Each chapter focuses on how island geography shaped the penal establishments and how they, in turn, shaped the administration of empire. The thesis uses three case studies – Melville Island in the Northern Territory (1824–28), Cockatoo Island in New South Wales (1839–69), and Rottnest Island in Western Australia (1839–1903) – to understand the role of maritime penal spaces in the settler–colonial project. Exploiting a unique tension of islands as both isolated and connected by sea, the thesis advances historical understanding of the relationship between punishment, labour and environment at the very fringes of empire.

This scholarship will enable Katherine to access archival material about convict labour on Rottnest Island (Wadjemup), including correspondence files and plans and drawings of lighthouses and lighthouse sites dating back to the late 1800s. Aboriginal prisoners on Rottnest built not one, but two, lighthouses to guide ships to the busy port at Fremantle – one of countless examples of convicts building the maritime infrastructure necessary for global trade. Rottnest’s inmates also harvested salt, an essential commodity for preserving goods, which was sold at Fremantle. Some of Rottnest’s inmates also worked as servants for numerous governors of Western Australia who would holiday on the island with their families. This prefaced ‘Rotto’s’ transition to the leisure destination it is today, with 570,000 tourists visiting in 2014–15.

Please contact us for details of pre-2016 recipients.

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Alfred Godfrey Postgraduate Research Scholarship in a Cultural History of the Policing of Music in Australia

How to apply.

Apply here .

Applicants will receive the outcome within 2-3 weeks after submission. Scholarship will be open until a suitable candidate is selected. 

The Scholarship will provide a stipend allowance equivalent to the University of Sydney Research Training Program (RTP) Stipend rate (indexed on 1 January each year) for up to 3.5 years, subject to satisfactory academic performance.

Who's eligible

• have an unconditional offer of admission to study full-time in a PhD within the University of Sydney Law School or Sydney Conservatorium of Music at the University of Sydney
• conduct research across the inter-disciplinary fields related to the project focusing on the relationship between policing and popular music in Australia. Fields of study include criminology, sociology of music, cultural history, Indigenous and First Nations studies
• hold at least one of the following in social of human sciences, criminology, cultural studies, history, law, political science, international relations or equivalent:
• an Honours degree (First Class or Second Class Upper) or equivalent, or
• a Master’s degree
• must be supervised by either Professor Murray Lee (Sydney Law School) or Dr Toby Martin (Sydney Conservatorium of Music) at the University of Sydney. 

Please Note: Preference will be given to applicants of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander background in line with the research topic. You must identify as an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander person as defined in the University of Sydney’s  Confirmation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Identity Policy 2015.

This Scholarship has been established to provide financial assistance to a PhD student who is undertaking research in an aspect of a cultural history of the policing of music in Australia.

This Scholarship is co- funded by Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Projects grant for the project ‘Policing Australian Popular Music’ and the generous donation to University of Sydney Law School by Florence May Padbury in memory of her late father Alfred Godfrey. 

Terms and conditions

1. Background

a. This Scholarship has been established to provide financial assistance to a PhD student who is undertaking research in an aspect of a cultural history of the policing of music in Australia. b. This Scholarship is co- funded by Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Projects grant for the project ‘Policing Australian Popular Music’ and the generous donation to University of Sydney Law School by Florence May Padbury in memory of her late father Alfred Godfrey.

2. Eligibility

a. The Scholarship is offered subject to the applicant having an unconditional offer of admission to study full-time in a PhD within the University of Sydney Law School or Sydney Conservatorium of Music at the University of Sydney.

b. Applicants must conduct research across the inter-disciplinary fields related to the project focusing on the relationship between policing and popular music in Australia. Fields of study include criminology, sociology of music, cultural history, indigenous and First Nations studies.

c. Applicants must also hold at least one of the following in social of human sciences, criminology, cultural studies, history, law, political science, international relations or equivalent: a. an Honours degree (First Class or Second Class Upper) or equivalent, or b. a Master’s degree.

d. Applicants must be supervised by either Professor Murray Lee (Sydney Law School) or Dr Toby Martin (Sydney Conservatorium of Music) at the University of Sydney.

3. Selection Criteria

a. The successful applicant will be awarded the Scholarship on the basis of:

I. academic merit, II. curriculum vitae, III. area of study and/or research proposal, and IV. a personal statement which demonstrates the applicant's motivations for pursuing a postgraduate research degree in criminology, cultural studies, cultural history music or other related discipline in line with the focus of the project.

b. Preference will be given to applicants of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander background in line with the research topic.

c. The successful applicant will be awarded the Scholarship on the nomination of the relevant research supervisor(s), or their nominated delegate(s).

a. The Scholarship will provide a stipend allowance equivalent to the University of Sydney Research Training Program (RTP) Stipend rate (indexed on 1 January each year) for up to 3.5 years, subject to satisfactory academic performance.

b. A part-time scholarship may be approved where the University is satisfied that there are special circumstances beyond the student’s control. For example, medical conditions, financial hardship and carer’s responsibilities. A part-time scholarship may have tax implications and recipients should seek tax advice from a registered tax agent.

c. Periods of study already undertaken towards the degree prior to the commencement of the Scholarship will be deducted from the maximum duration of the Scholarship excluding any potential extension period.

d. The Scholarship is for commencement in the relevant research period in which it is offered and cannot be deferred without prior approval from the lead research supervisor.

e. The Scholarship cannot be transferred to another area of research.

f. No other amount is payable.

g. The Scholarship will be offered subject to the availability of funding.

5. Eligibility for Progression

a. Progression is subject to attending and passing the annual progress evaluation.

6. Leave Arrangements

a. The Scholarship recipient receives up to 20 working days recreation leave each year of the Scholarship and this may be accrued. However, the student will forfeit any unused leave remaining when the Scholarship is terminated or complete. Recreation leave does not attract a leave loading and the supervisor's agreement must be obtained before leave is taken.

b. The Scholarship recipient may take up to 10 working days sick leave each year of the Scholarship and this may be accrued over the tenure of the Scholarship. Students with family responsibilities, caring for sick children or relatives, or experiencing domestic violence, may convert up to five days of their annual sick leave entitlement to carer’s leave on presentation of medical certificate(s). Students taking sick leave must inform their supervisor as soon as practicable.

7. Research Overseas

a. The Scholarship recipient may not normally conduct research overseas within the first six months of award.

b. The Scholarship holder may conduct up to 12 months of their research outside Australia. Approval must be sought from the student's supervisor, Head of School and the Faculty via application to the Higher Degree by Research Administration Centre (HDRAC), and will only be granted if the research is essential for completion of the degree. All periods of overseas research are cumulative and will be counted towards a student's candidature. Students must remain enrolled full-time at the University and receive approval to count time away.

8. Suspension

a. The Scholarship recipient cannot suspend their award within their first six months of study, unless a legislative provision applies.

b. The Scholarship recipient may apply for up to 12 months suspension of the Scholarship for any reason during the tenure of the Scholarship. Periods of Scholarship suspension are cumulative and failure to resume study after suspension will result in the award being terminated. Approval must be sought from the student's supervisor, Head of School and the Faculty via application to the Higher Degree by Research Administration Centre (HDRAC). Periods of study towards the degree during suspension of the Scholarship will be deducted from the maximum tenure of the Scholarship.

9. Changes in Enrolment

a. The Scholarship recipient must notify HDRAC, and their supervisor promptly of any planned changes to their enrolment including but not limited to: attendance pattern, suspension, leave of absence, withdrawal, course transfer, and candidature upgrade or downgrade. If the award holder does not provide notice of the changes identified above, the University may require repayment of any overpaid stipend.

10. Termination

a. The Scholarship will be terminated:

I. on resignation or withdrawal of the recipient from their research degree, II. upon submission of the thesis or at the end of the award, III. if the recipient ceases to be a full-time student and prior approval has not been obtained to hold the Scholarship on a part-time basis from the research supervisor, IV. upon the recipient having completed the maximum candidature for their degree as per the University of Sydney (Higher Degree by Research) Rule 2011 Policy, V. if the recipient receives an alternative primary stipend scholarship. In such circumstances this Scholarship will be terminated in favour of the alternative stipend scholarship where it is of higher value, VI. if the recipient does not resume study at the end of a period of approved leave, or VII. if the recipient ceases to meet the eligibility requirements specified for this Scholarship, (other than during a period in which the Scholarship has been suspended or during a period of approved leave).

b. The Scholarship may also be terminated by the University before this time if, in the opinion of the University:

I. the course of study is not being carried out with competence and diligence or in accordance with the terms of this offer, II. the student fails to maintain satisfactory progress, or III. the student has committed misconduct or other inappropriate conduct.

c. The Scholarship will be suspended throughout the duration of any enquiry/appeal process.

d. Once the Scholarship has been terminated, it will not be reinstated unless due to University error.

11. Misconduct

a. Where during the Scholarship a student engages in misconduct, or other inappropriate conduct (either during the Scholarship or in connection with the student’s application and eligibility for the Scholarship), which in the opinion of the University warrants recovery of funds provided, the University may require the student to repay payments made in connection with the Scholarship. Examples of such conduct include and without limitation; academic dishonesty, research misconduct within the meaning of the Research Code of Conduct 2023 (for example, plagiarism in proposing, carrying out or reporting the results of research, or failure to declare or manage a serious conflict of interests), breach of the Student Charter 2020 and misrepresentation in the application materials or other documentation associated with the Scholarship.

b. The University may require such repayment at any time during or after the Scholarship period. In addition, by accepting this Scholarship, the student consents to all aspects of any investigation into misconduct in connection with this Scholarship being disclosed by the University to the funding body and/or any relevant professional body.

12. Acknowledgements

a. The recipient must acknowledge the support from Australian Research Council (ARC) in all Material, publications and promotional and advertising materials published in connection with this Agreement in the form of acknowledgement available on the ARC website.

b. ARC’s contribution and support of the project must be acknowledged in a prominent place and an appropriate form acceptable to ARC when, at any time during or after completion of the project.

c. Where the Research Output is a publication, in addition to acknowledging ARC support, the relevant Project ID must be included. Metadata for the Research Output must include the ARC Project ID (DP240100531), list ARC as a Grant source and contain a permanent Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for the Research Output. If a DOI is not available, then a permanent Uniform Resource Locator (URL) link must be provided instead to the Research Output

13. Reports

a. The recipient of this Scholarship may be requested to contribute to the progress and final reports to ARC.

14. Intellectual Property

a. The recipient of this Scholarship must complete the Student Deed Poll supplied by the University of Sydney.

15. Confidentiality

a. The recipient agrees to not to disclose confidential information without prior written consent unless required or authorised by law or Parliament to disclose.

16. Privacy

a. The recipient agrees to comply with the requirements of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).

b. The recipient agrees not to send any Personal Information outside of Australia without the Commonwealth’s prior written approval.

17. Other Requirements

a. All ARC-funded research projects must comply with the ARC Open Access Policy on the dissemination of research findings, which is on the ARC website. In accordance with this policy.

b. Any research outputs arising from ARC-funded research must be made openly accessible within a 12-month period from the publication date.  

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