The 2022 annual business meeting was held online on Tuesday October 4 and Thursday October 6, following this agenda and papers (PDF 364KB).
Attendees (October 4): Derrick Armstrong, Gabriele Bammer, Ana Corbacho, Iain Gordon, Jason Prior, Ken Taylor, Dan Walker (part).
Attendees (October 6): Gabriele Bammer, Paul Bertsch, Beth Fulton, Iain Gordon, Libby Harrison, Petra Lundgren, Louise McWhinnie, Rob Raven, Ken Taylor.
Apologies: Martin Bliemel, Paul Bolger, Jennifer Howell, Anna Peeters, Briony Rogers, Allanah Ryan, Upolu Luma Va’ai, Stuart White.
Chair: Ken Taylor
Technical assistance: Cassie Moutia
Attendees were welcomed, followed by an Australian Acknowledgement of Country, a Māori Karakia and an acknowledgement of the peoples of the Pacific and their Vanua.
Where are we heading?
Iain Gordon reported on the strategic planning process (draft available in meeting papers), following which there was a discussion of:
- What has worked well in inter- and trans- disciplinarity in your organisation?
- What is not worked well? What are the challenges?
- What are you optimistic about?
- What are you concerned about?
- What should NITRO-Oceania do next to foster inter- and trans- disciplinarity?
The business meeting discussions will be incorporated into the strategic planning document. This will be posted on the website when it is available.
What have we done?
Gabriele Bammer presented highlights from the 2021-22 activity report and financial statement (available in the meeting papers)
President and NITRO-Oceania Executive
Professor Iain Gordon was elected unopposed to the role of President of NITRO-Oceania, replacing Professor Gabriele Bammer.
Dr Beth Fulton and Associate Professor Martin Bliemel were elected unopposed as members of the Executive, joining:
- Professor Derrick Armstrong
- Professor Gabriele Bammer (website)
- Dr Paul Bertsch
- Professor Iain Gordon (President)
- Professor Rob Raven
- Mr Ken Taylor
- Professor Stuart White.
(Affiliations are available at https://nitro-oceania.net/members/)
The meeting closed with thanks to Gabriele Bammer for her leadership of NITRO-Oceania from its inception to this stage and to Allanah Ryan and Dan Walker for their many contributions to the Executive.
The chair also delivered a closing Karakia.
Meeting preparation
This YouTube video (4 minutes), made by one of NITRO-Oceania’s founding members, Professor Iain Gordon, provides a brief introduction to NITRO-Oceania and the meeting:
A brief introduction to NITRO-Oceania
People, communities and economies globally and regionally are facing multiple challenges. With the Covid-19 pandemic still amongst us, supporting healthy and thriving communities is one clear challenge. Caring for the environment amidst climate change, biodiversity loss and food insecurity is another. Geo-political insecurity and associated migration, violence and refugee flows are also dramatically affecting communities. These multiple crises are interconnected through complex relations and feedback loops, which cannot be addressed in isolation.
Working with partners, and across universities and other institutes, is central to creating the diverse knowledges and solutions necessary to address these challenges. They require transcending traditional boundaries of discipline-based research and education.
Despite the longstanding recognition that challenge-led research needs interdisciplinary collaboration as well as transdisciplinary approaches, universities and research ecosystems are not well equipped to nurture them. For instance, there are mismatches between inter- and transdisciplinary career pathways and institutional KPIs and funding. Publishing inter-and transdisciplinary research is often more complex and time-consuming.
NITRO-Oceania was established to help address these challenges by inspiring and supporting researchers to achieve transformational impact on global challenges and by championing interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity in research policy and funding settings.