New Faculty Strategic Research Fund enables aspirational research
A new Faculty Strategic Research Fund has enabled the funding of 14 new research projects from the Wellington Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (FHSS).
The Fund, established by Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington’s Research Office, will support academic staff in the University’s Faculties to engage in ambitious research that is aspirational for the applicant and/or reflects a step-change in an individual’s pursuit of research excellence. It also aims, with the inclusion of Establishment Grants, to support academic staff who have recently completed their PhD.
In its inaugural round this year, 10 FHSS projects were approved for Faculty Strategic Research Grants, and four for Faculty Research Establishment Grants.
The projects funded came from across the Schools within FHSS and show the diversity of the research taking place in the Faculty. The research projects include exploration into:
- art and art writing documenting climate change in New Zealand
- dyslexic readers’ ability to predict information in texts
- decolonisation through musical instruments
- the role of tertiary education in challenging white supremacy and racism
- social and cultural influences on address/honorific systems in Northeast Asia.
Associate Dean (Research) Professor Kevin Dew says, “This Fund has been an immediate success in many ways. Many staff across the Faculty have embraced this opportunity to put forward ambitious research proposals and, although we were not able to fund them all, it is terrific to see so many great applications supported.”
Congratulations to the following FHSS researchers on their success:
Faculty Strategic Research Grants:
- Dr Su Ballard (School of English, Film, Theatre, Media and Communication, and Art History): An environmental art history of Aotearoa New Zealand.
- Ayca Arkilic (School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations): Conversion, identity, and belonging in Aotearoa New Zealand.
- Alexander Bukh (School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations): Japan-South Korea Relations in the post-WWII era.
- Sasha Calhoun (School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies): City girl squawk: Socialising the biological code in intonational meaning.
- Jean Parkinson (School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies): Projecting an academic persona—Multimodal persuasion in science and engineering writing.
- Anna Siyanova (School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies): Frequency and predictability effects in developmental dyslexia.
- Jennifer de Saxe (School of Social and Cultural Studies): Interrogating white supremacy praxis, emancipation, and education.
- Brian Diettrich (New Zealand School of Music—Te Kōkī): Listening with shell, wood, and fibre: Decolonising through musical instruments.
- Jenny Wollerman (New Zealand School of Music—Te Kōkī): 21 songs by 21 female composers from Aotearoa New Zealand.
- Michael Norris (New Zealand School of Music —Te Kōkī): RERENGA: An album of orchestral compositions.
Faculty Research Establishment Grants:
- Yuri Cerquiera dos Anjos (School of Languages and Cultures): Imagining writing in the industrial age: French writing manuals 1830–1914.
- Shin Takahashi (School of Languages and Cultures): Memory activism in post-WWII Northeast Asia: A transcultural perspective.
- Claire Timperley (School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations): Transforming politics: A repertoire for civic action in Aotearoa.
- Yoko Yonezawa (School of Languages and Cultures): The nexus between social change and language change with a focus on Japanese and Northeast Asian honorific systems.