The five key areas that the Social Science Program will focus on
are:
- Engaging settlements, Aboriginal organisations and their local
knowledge in our research.
- Promoting and supporting a culture of ethical research,
particularly cross-culturally.
- Ensuring that research is relevant, and driven by settlement
residents and their organisations.
- Developing Livelihood opportunities.
- Understanding the ownership and management of various forms of
knowledge used in Desert Knowledge CRC projects.
To date the Social Science Program has organised workshops in
Collaborative Methodologies with Waltja, is developing an
engagement protocol and has performed a valuable role in
communicating principles and methodologies across the Desert
Knowledge CRC's research program.
Research policies and protocols
Aboriginal engagement protocol - February 2007 - Download
Aboriginal engagement protocol: context of use
The Aboriginal engagement protocol is designed to be user
friendly and adaptive to any research project that seeks to
undertake research in Aboriginal settlements or with Aboriginal
people in a town context. It is a framework that can be altered as
relevant to each research project. It is ultimately the ethical
principles of research and the structure of the protocol, as it
aims to facilitate negotiation in benefit sharing, that underline
the value of the protocol. As a research tool it is designed to
work alongside the requirements that each researcher has to their
own university’s ethics committee. Hence, it is complimentary
to this process and cannot replace it. However, researchers,
including Desert Knowledge CRC students, may find that the use of
this protocol will assist in developing a strong ethics
application.
The Desert Knowledge CRC Board, with significant Aboriginal
representation, has endorsed the use of the protocol. It is
anticipated that all new research projects that are planning on
working with Aboriginal people will have developed their own
protocol within the structure of this one. Once a protocol is
finalised (this may take two or more visits), copies are to be held
within the Desert Knowledge CRC secretariat. The Social Science
coordinator will be responsible for ensuring that each project has
an up-to-date protocol and these can be sent to her electronically
or by post. These protocols will be revisited annually over the
life of the project, offering an opportunity for all researchers
and relevant community members to discuss the progress of the
research and if it is proceeding according to expectations.
The protocol is essentially an amalgam of elements of two
reports that were sponsored by the Desert Knowledge CRC: the
Central land Council’s (CLC) report The Development of
protocols for conducting research and other activities in the
Central Land Council region and the Centre for Appropriate
Technology’s (CAT) project on the Effective Research and
development Collaboration: participatory and capacity building
frameworks for involving desert people .
Finally, as it is yet to be tested in the field, the Social
Science coordinator is looking forward to feedback on the
usefulness of this protocol from researchers, and will update it
accordingly.
November 2006.
Schedule of rates for Aboriginal workers in research - February
2007 - Download
Schedule of rates for Aboriginal workers in research: context
of use
As another standard setting resource, this schedule of rates
aims to ensure that the range of skills that Aboriginal
participants in research bring with them is recognised and paid
accordingly. It is the responsibility of university researchers to
cost the involvement of local Aboriginal researchers, facilitators,
cultural knowledge experts, etc, at the beginning of the
project.
The aim is not for these rates to be prohibitive, however. It is
acknowledged that all good collaborative research evolves over the
life of the project, so that some individuals may become more
active and undertake training courses that may necessitate a
different pay structure. Likewise, the university researcher may
have to negotiate with the individual community researcher to
ensure that they are not adversely affecting regular pensions/CDEP
payments etc (see the taxation hobby forms available for download,
also on this site). However, importantly this pay schedule offers a
set of base rates that the Desert Knowledge CRC endorses.
A number of resources were referred to when developing up this
pay scale. Discussions were held with Tangentyere Council and the
Central Land Council (CLC), and pay scales were referred to from
the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Studies (AIATSIS) and from the Batchelor Institute (BIITE). The
Tangentyere research unit emphasised that their pay rates are based
on salaries, rather than by the hour and that the research work
they tend to undertake tends to be relatively long term. Much of
the Desert Knowledge CRC research work, however, will be relatively
short term and sporadic, thus necessitating a higher rate. The CLC
gave guidance for rates on cultural expertise and this is reflected
in the pay scale. The AIATSIS pay scale for research assistance was
found to be inadequate and probably out of date. The BIITE pay
rates and the scaling of expertise was, however, very helpful and
some of their language is found within the attached document.
Prior Informed Consent form - February 2007 - Download