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 | Biography |  |
Dr Daniel Franks is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Responsibility of Mining (CSRM). For the past 12 years he has worked with government, industry and community stakeholders to bring about practical change to policies, systems and processes to meet the challenges resource extraction poses to sustainable and equitable development.
Daniel is responsible for leading and managing the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining’s applied research and advisory activities focused on the interface between communities, environment and technology.
Some of his current and recent research projects include the drafting of a responsible mining brief for the United Nations Development Programme in Cambodia; research into the relationship between extractive resources, conflict and governance for the Australian overseas aid program (AusAID); the development of a community relations plan and grievance handling process for the Collahuasi copper operation in Northern Chile; advice to the Queensland Government on the treatment of cumulative impacts within impact assessments, and the introduction of social impact management plans for resource projects in Queensland; and investigation into the costs of local community conflict in the extractives industry in collaboration with the CSR initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Daniel is the Co-Chair for Social Impact Assessment at the International Association for Impact Assessment; is an Honorary Fellow at the Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect; and a member of the Queensland Government expert panel for the rehabilitation of the Mt Oxide abandoned mine.
Prior to joining the University of Queensland Daniel led a Social and Economic Unit within the then Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Water. As a Senior Social Scientist he was responsible for improving the quality of social impact assessment for natural resource management programs in Queensland. Daniel has also worked as an environmental geoscientist consulting to major resource projects & ENGOs.
His published works include chapters in the prestigious SME Mining Engineering Handbook and the forthcoming Frank Vanclay and Ana Maria Esteves edited volume New Directions in Social Impact Assessment on the topic of social impact assessment; a chapter on the challenges of company-community relations in post-conflict settings in the forthcoming UNEP volume High-Value Natural Resources and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding; papers in Resources Policy and the Journal for Cleaner Production on resource governance and the interplay between human rights, water and mining; as well as numerous guide books and research briefs.
Daniel holds undergraduate and honours qualifications in earth sciences and postgraduate qualifications in political and social sciences. His PhD from Griffith University explored the political geography and political ecology of the non-consensual appropriation of extractive resources in Chile and West Papua for which he was awarded a Chancellor’s medal for the Science, Environment, Engineering and Technology Group’s top ranked PhD candidate. He has worked in most of the major mining regions in Australia and has international research experience (social science and geoscience) in Latin America, Cambodia, Canada, and Switzerland. He regularly contributes to training and professional development courses and guest lectures for environment, community and sustainable development subjects. Daniel was the lead trainer for a 3-day training workshop on resource governance for the Cambodian General Department of Mineral Resources and the keynote speaker for a social issues discussion from held as part of the First International Seminar on Environmental Issues in the Mining Industry, Santiago, 2009. He is a member of the technical committee for the International Seminar on Social Responsibility in Mining to be held in 2011.
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