ARC Future Fellowship funding success

The Australian Research Council (ARC) has awarded prestigious Future Fellowships to two outstanding researchers from La Trobe University.

Federal Minister for Education, the Hon Dan Tehan has announced La Trobe researchers Associate Professor Kate Seear - from the Australian Research Centre for Sex, Health and Society - and Dr Amanda Cooklin - from the Judith Lumley Centre - have both been named Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship recipients.

Associate Professor Kate Seear

Improving social, economic and health outcomes through drug policy reforms - $1,034,020

Globally, recognition is growing that common prohibitionist drug policies contribute to drug-related harms and have not succeeded. Identified harms include the current drug overdose crisis in North America and a surge in overdose deaths in Australia, adding new force to calls for urgent reform. This project aims to respond to these calls by exploring how human rights considerations can inform improvements to drug policy. The project seeks to generate new knowledge on how human rights can guide reform to improve social, economic and health outcomes. The project will provide significant benefits to the nation, informing Australian legal, policy and practice reforms as well as international efforts to reduce drug-related harms.

Dr Amanda (Mandi) Cooklin

The long arm of the job: Improving parents' jobs and child development - $884,449

This project will identify the priority job stressors that impact working families' wellbeing and child development, and will generate innovative job-based strategies to reduce work-family conflicts for working parents. Conflicts between work and family are common in Australia; they affect productivity, family relationships and child development. Evidence reveals that employers have struggled to implement family-friendly practices despite recent national policy initiatives. This project will investigate solutions to this urgent national dilemma to benefit those most affected by parents' job stressors – working parents and their children.

La Trobe Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Industry Engagement) Professor Susan Dodds congratulated the two recipients on their success.

"It is great to celebrate this success for one of our Tracey Banivanua Mar Fellows (Dr Cooklin). The fellowship supports researchers who have demonstrated potential to be a future leader and who have major caring responsibilities. They are one of the principal actions in our SAGE Athena SWAN Action Plan to improve gender equality and diversity in higher education and research," Professor Dodds said.