The growth and development of Australia’s population and economy presents challenges for planners and policy makers.
But a unique and innovative research network is hoping to improve our understanding of the processes of change that are impacting people and places across Australia and affecting the quality of life for all Australians.
University of Queensland (UQ) researcher Professor Bob Stimson, heads up the new Australian Research Council Research Network in Spatially Integrated Social Science (SISS), which aims to address significant challenges facing communities, businesses and governments across the nation.
“The Network will help us understand the nature and the performance and the operation of people, places and the economy,” Professor Stimson said.
“In recent years there has been a great advance in spatial information technology enabling us to integrate diverse data sets to analyses socio-economic phenomena in a space and place context.
“The Network will take advantage of those incredible advances to development with hard evidence on a better evidence base to inform policy and planning.
“This can help governments and businesses to develop more appropriate strategies to address the needs of people and places in Australia in achieving a sustainable, prosperous and just society with an improved quality of life for all people.”
Professor Stimson, who is also Director of the Centre for Research into Sustainable Urban and Regional Futures (CR-SURF) at UQ, said this was the first time in Australia such a research network had been established to give a spatial perspective to planners, policy and decision makers in business and government.
“The Network will build our research capacity to better understand how space and place relate to how people live and how our society and economy operate,” he said.
“Not too long ago it was thought the global reach of the internet would see the “death of distance”, and geography would become irrelevant.
“The reality is that in an age of globalisation space, place and their qualities and consequences matter more, not less.
“The term ‘Globalism’ captures the essence of life nowadays whether the life is lived in Cooktown, Hobart, Sydney or Brisbane.”
The SISS Network has attracted more than 190 individual participants in 19 Australian universities, along with the Australian Bureau of Statistics and two international affiliates the Centre for Spatially Integrated Social Science at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at University College London.
Media inquires: Professor Bob Stimson (07 3365 6307) or Andrew Dunne at UQ Communications (07 3365 2802 or 0433 364 181).
