ARC Grant Successes

Congratulations to ICS researchers Professor Katherine Gibson and Dr Stephen Healy; Professor Brett Neilson, Professor Ned Rossiter, ICS Adjunct Fellow Associate Professor Sandro Mezzadra and Adjunct Professor Anna Reading; and School-based member Dr Jessica Whyte who have been successful in the 2016 Australian Research Council (ARC) funding round announced this morning.

The winning grants are:

Discovery Grants

• 'Reconfiguring the Enterprise: Shifting Manufacturing Culture in Australia', Professor Katherine Gibson (Chief Investigator) with Dr Stephen Healy on the research team: $344,885
• 'Data Centres and the Governance of Labour and Territory', Professor Brett Neilson (Chief Investigator) with Professor Ned Rossiter on the research team: $433,790

ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA)

• 'The Invention of Collateral Damage and the Changing Moral Economy of War', Dr Jessica Whyte: $346,434

Project Details

Reconfiguring the Enterprise: Shifting Manufacturing Culture in Australia

Research team: Professor Katherine Gibson, Dr Stephen Healy, Associate Professor Jenny Cameron (University of Newcastle)

Concerned with the wider societal and planetary impacts of business as usual, some innovative Australian manufacturers are reorienting their business towards social and environmental sustainability. The complexities involved in pursuing genuine sustainability in the enterprise call for shifts in the culture of manufacturing. This project uses qualitative research to explore the inner workings of twelve firms that are integrating different forms of sustainability into their core operations. The research develops business metrics and critical incident cases to unravel the negotiations involved in addressing social and environmental sustainability. In so doing, it contributes to debates about the nature of enterprise in the 21st century.

Data Centres and the Governance of Labour and Territory

Research team: Professor Brett Neilson, Professor Ned Rossiter, Dr Tanya Notley (Western Sydney University), Professor Laikwan Pang (Chinese University of Hong Kong), Professor Stefano Harney (Singapore Management University), Associate Professor Sandro Mezzadra (University of Bologna and ICS Adjunct Fellow), Professor Anna Reading (King's College London and ICS Adjunct Professor), Dr Florian Sprenger (Leuphana University Lüneburg)

Focusing on data centres in Singapore, Hong Kong and Sydney, the project aims to advance understandings of how these facilities are transforming ways of living and working in the Asia Pacific. Without data centres the world stops; these infrastructures are the core components of a rapidly expanding but rarely discussed digital storage and management industry that has become critical to global economy and society. The intended outcome of the project is a broadening of debates and research practices relevant to policymaking on the digital economy. The expected benefit is increased public knowledge about the social and cultural effects of data-driven economic change and, in particular, the growing importance of private data infrastructures.

The Invention of Collateral Damage and the Changing Moral Economy of War

Dr Jessica Whyte, School of Humanities and Communication Arts and ICS School-based member (this project will be hosted within the School of Humanities and Communication Arts).

This project aims to provide a novel philosophical account of the invention of the concept of collateral damage in war. It seeks to understand the historical and institutional processes that have produced a moral distinction between deliberate harm inflicted on non-combatants, and the non-intentional harm that is seen as an inevitable side effect of modern warfare. Drawing on archival material and military manuals, and combining insights from the history of human rights and contemporary European political philosophy, the project aims to produce a sophisticated philosophical framework for understanding the social and political implications of conceiving civilian deaths as collateral damage to contribute to public debate about the human costs of war.

Western Sydney University received over $5 million in Australian Research Council funding in this round with a total of 12 Discovery Project Grants and three Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards (DECRA).

To read about all the grants awarded to Western Sydney University see the University's media release and ARC funding outcomes page.

Posted: 30 October 2015.