Thanks for all your support as Australian Policy and History in 2018. Our final post for the year is a brief report from David Lowe about the inaugural meeting and conference of international history and policy organisations, held in London last week.
You can follow this link, provided by History and Policy, to listen to the conference presentations by historians Simon Szreter (keynote address), Sally Sheard, Roberta Bivins, Jennifer Crane, David Lowe, Joanna Cruickshank, Pawan Singh, Klaus Neumann, Carolyn Holbrook, Dane Kennedy and James Grossman.
We’ll be back in early 2019, and we have lots of exciting activities planned!
Have a lovely break, Carolyn Holbrook
Report by David Lowe
Deakin University’s Contemporary Histories Research Group sponsored a number of Australian scholars active in the APH space to participate in two related events in London in December. The first, on 10 December, was a workshop hosted by the British History and Policy group at King’s College, London, and including representatives from the American Historical Association, the National History Center (US), Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest (US) the Killarney Economic Conference (Ireland), Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), Karlsruhe Institute for Technology (Germany) and the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Witwatersrand (South Africa). These centres have been embarked, or are about to embark, on missions similar to that of APH, connecting academic historians with policy makers and advocating for historical research to be fundamental to policy formation.
The workshop enabled the groups, including the APH group, to outline their past and current activities in contexts pertaining to organisation, reach and plans; and to reflect on the practices outlined and learn from each other. The group also explored the potential for joint activities and for the formation of an international network enabling strong cross-postings and sharing.
The second event, on 11 December, was the History & Policy International Conference, again hosted by the British History and Policy group and King’s College, and open to the public. The conference featured ten papers relating to History and Policy, under three headings, following a keynote presentation by Prof Simon Szreter (Cambridge). The three themes were Citizens and Nations Health and Wellbeing and Moments of Crisis. There were five Australian presentations, and UK presentations also from Warwick and Liverpool, and US presentations from the American Historical Association and the National History Center.
Participating Australian scholars in these APH events were: Dr Joanna Cruickshank, Dr Carolyn Holbrook, Prof David Lowe, Prof Klaus Neumann, Prof Matthew Ricketson, Dr Pawan Singh and Dr Filip Slaveski, all from Deakin University.
David Lowe
Professor David Lowe
Co-founder, Australian Policy and History
Smuts Visiting Research Fellow in Commonwealth Studies
Centre of South Asian Studies and Clare Hall
University of Cambridge