Engaged ANU

Engaged ANU aims to support the visibility, engagement and reach of ANU research through “engaged communication”: inviting public input and interaction, using creative and cultural methodologies.

Summary of project

 

We are working with six ANU research teams to design, produce, deliver and evaluate compelling research communication and translation projects.

Engaged ANU is a 12-month pilot project (May 2022 - May 2023). It is sponsored by the VC as part of the broader ANU ambition to be a resource of national significance, to deepen relationships with the public and deliver public value, and to support ANU academics achieve world-class research engagement.

Engaged ANU is guided by five principles:

  • Quality
  • Creativity
  • Dream big
  • Honouring country
  • Dialogue

These principles align with the objective of the project to be inclusive and all-encompassing across campus (not a top down, selective or exclusive approach), while also dreaming big in what the project can achieve, and being creative to produce world-class engaged communication. At the heart of the project is the collaboration between the creative team and the research teams whose work we are seeking to support.

Current projects

 
Mayi Kuwayu picture

Mayi Kuwayu

Lead Researcher: Professor Ray Lovett

The Mayi Kuwayu Study is a national study of over 10,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults, from over 150 mobs, designed to generate Indigenous-led and governed data to answer the question of how culture relates to health and wellbeing for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

The Mayi Kuwayu research team dreamt of creating engaging and creative communication tools to translate the novel and deep data their study had collected, in a way that aligned with community needs and priorities.

This collaboration was guided by intentions to educate without causing harm, influence key policy actions to make change, and keep the burden of change on non-Indigenous people.

Engaged ANU worked with Mayi Kuwayu to create Ending Racism, a microsite featuring the voices of Indigenous people and their visions for a world without racism, as well as a Check Up challenging non-Indigenous people and organisations to consider what they are doing to end racism.

Murrudha picture

Murrudha: Sovereign Walks - Tracking Cultural Actions Through Art, Country, Language and Music

Lead Researcher: Professor Brenda L Croft

Working in partnership with First Nations communities, this project aims to reinvigorate customary practices and build cultural health and wellbeing, through commemorating First Nations sovereign actions. This multimodal, multidisciplinary project will be conducted through the performative act of walking, retracing, singing, recording and being on Country.

The Murrudha research team dreamt of reinvigorating these walks, languages and song through community engagement, while actively engaging with environmental issues, caring for and maintaining connections to Country.

This collaboration was guided by intentions to consider Country as an active participant, encourage young people to experience taking the walk and to create an embodied experience of history.

Engaged ANU is working with Murrudha to focus on engaging audiences with the Djinima Yilaga choir’s performance of the Lhotsky story through a multimodal website.

newspaper

To Be Continued - The Australian Newspaper Fiction Database

Lead Researcher: Professor Katherine Bode

To Be Continued is a database of over 30,000 works of Australian fiction, published in newspapers in the 19th and early 20th centuries and rediscovered through digitisation. This undiscovered writing transforms our knowledge of Australian literature and literature in Australia.

This research team dreamt of enhancing digital literacy and community participation, focussing on the crowdsourcing community. By engaging new audiences, stories can be restructured, reconnected, and reimagined.

This collaboration was guided by intentions to encourage playful and productive engagement with the material, encourage readers to be critical, and to reimagine the material conditions of literature and history.

The creative communication project will focus on engaging audiences with these stories through an interactive podcast series and website home for this content.

High country

ANU and the Australian High Country

Lead Researcher: Professor Adrienne Nicotra

The Australian Alps are a biodiversity hotspot, but they face transformational change as a result of changing climate and other shifts in human pressures.

The research team aims to use the spectacular landscapes of the Australian high country to frame and showcase the value of the system, the vital work of the ANU, and the innovative solutions being sought to manage and protect it going forward. This project will share new understandings of what’s driving that change, and how we can respond proactively.

Their dream is to create a set of spectacular visual creations that make use of this iconic landscape and our data to showcase the research, engagement, and vision of our research at the ANU. They also aim to present a coherent story of the decades of sustained commitment and involvement, and the depth of contribution ANU has made and will continue to make to the Australian high country.

Volcano

Kuwae - the Volcanic Eruption that Launched the Modern World

Lead Researcher: Associate Professor Chris Ballard

In 1452 a huge volcanic eruption tore apart the island of Kuwae apart, leaving the islands of Epi and Tongoa in modern Vanuatu. This eruption triggered massive tsunamis and triggered the Little Ice Age, making itself felt around the world. Forgotten from Western history, the eruption lives on in the oral histories of the Tongoan people, as this multidisciplinary research project shows.

The research team aims to communicate with local, regional and global audiences through creative storytelling and visual imagery. The Kuwae story will also address the academic challenges of trans-disciplinary research, training and education, featuring an annual field school for ANU graduate and undergraduate students, engaging with researchers across all of the disciplines involved, as well as with local community colleagues.

Energy

Navigating the Energy Transition

Lead Researchers: Professor Bjorn Sturmberg, Dr Brad Riley

The clean energy transition is crucial to avoiding the worst impacts of climate change. It is a complex and comprehensive transformation that will touch on every part of society. The purpose of the project is to provide the broad public with an interactive experience, and tangible analogy, through which they can explore the interrelated elements of the transition to gain an appreciation of the diversity of potential outcomes and their role in directing the goal and course of the transition.

The research team aims to show how ANU research maps out the challenges of this transition, and how the choices we make along the way will shape Australia’s energy future. Their dream is to create a website that provides a multi-layer interactive experience for new audiences.