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STEP 2007 call for participation
Science, Technology and Economic Progress
Theme 2007: Why History Matters
National Doctoral Program: 3 to 7 December 2007
Invitation to PhD students

The 2007 Science, Technology and Economic Progress (STEP) forum for PHD students will be hosted by the University of Newcastle from 3 to 7 December. STEP is an annual, multi-disciplinary, national program to assist higher degree research students to think about their own topics in a wider way, by 'looking over the fence' into what other disciplines have to offer. Hosting of STEP has been shared between universities around Australia over the past 16 years. Each year STEP is conducted around a theme. In 2006 the focus was on 'security', interpreted broadly and critically to cover issues such as Australia's national security and the 'disaster-resilient society'. This year's forum will consider "Why History Matters'.

"All economic activity is, and always has been knowledge-based, in the sense that the state of the art in production, the conventions of commerce, and the norms is consumption all, entail the possession of information and cognitive skills. In the knowledge-driven economy, by contrast, the continuous search for new, reliable knowledge and the generation and absorbing of new information are centrally responsible for structural change and material progress. Recent decades have seen a significant acceleration in the pace of this historical transition. (Paul A. David, "Does the new economy need all the old IPR institutions and still more?, in Luc Soete and Baster Weel (eds), The Economics of the Digital Society (Elgar, 2005, p.114). This context influences individual and national choices of research projects, the strategies we adopt as individuals and nations, and the utilization of research findings. Old institutions may be transformed and new ones may have to be invented. The recently published Alan Harding et al. (eds), Bright Satanic Mills: Universities, Regional Development and the Knowledge Economy (Ashgate, 2007) canvasses these changes.

The program for 2007 is an important milestone on the way to establishing in the near future the BHP Billiton Centre for the History of Science and Technology at The University of Newcastle. Newcastle and the Hunter is a particularly appropriate place for this forum. Technological innovation underpinned the development of coal mining, transport, smelting, and the steel making industries. More recently, the Hunter has experienced a transition from an industrial to a post-industrial society, with a focus on information or knowledge intensive production. Developments such as the growth of 'sustainable' technologies (CSIRO Energy Centre) and sustainable industries (such as fish farming and organic cropping) suggest that the Hunter is moving towards a new kind of technological base. Yet so-called 'old economy' technologies such as coal mining, transport technology and engineering remain important. These developments have vital social implications for the Hunter region and lessons for Australia as a whole. Accordingly, the 2007 forum will also entail a student research project: an assessment of the October 2006 'Lower Hunter Conservatorium Plan and Regional Strategy': http://www.duap.nsw.gov.au/mediarelplan/fs20061017_435.html

STEP 2007 forum is supported by the Tom Farrell Institute for the Enviornment and the Research Institute for the Advanced Study for Humanity (RIASH), both at the University of Newcastle.

PhD students from across disciplines are invited to participate in STEP 2007. The purpose of STEP is to bring together a mixed group of high quality PhD students: mixed in terms of discipline, topics, stage of their research, and home institutions. Students from the social sciences, humanities, science and engineering, education and information technologies are encouraged to attend. PhD students are not selected on the basis of their special interest in the 'theme', but rather the theme has been selected to push the students to cross-disciplinary boundaries and see their own work in a different light.

Positions are limited to 25 places. During the course of the program all students will be expected to make a presentation about their research to the group and respond to questions about their research. There is no registration cost and accommodation for the week will be provided for the participants in the University of Newcastle's onsite student housing. In special cases some travel assistance will be provided.

Academics from several universities attend STEP to provide mentoring and leadership to the students. In 2007, among the academics attending will be:

Past Participant Comments on STEP

For me, the highlight of attending a STEP forum during the final year of my PhD in Electrical Engineering was the opportunity to meet a number of other PhD students with a wide range of expertise and perspectives, and to explore the relevance and applicability of our "expert" understandings to broader problems of social significance - they weren't always what I expected! The experience also provided an opportunity to reflect more deeply on the purpose and process of research. The exercise of communicating - both in efficiently explaining my own very narrow area of research to an educated "audience" not experts in my field, and in trying to understand the capabilities and limitations of expertise in other fields - was an opportunity to practice a skill that has proved invaluable (as well as being interesting). It was also quite comforting to recognise the commonality, across a broad range of disciplinary and University contexts, of some of the more frustrating aspects of PhD study experience. The opportunity to talk to others from quite diverse fields in a relaxed, somewhat informal setting, helped me to put my PhD experience in a broader perspective, both in terms of contribution to my own career and contribution to intellectual culture more broadly.
Dr Thomas Brinsmead, Cooperative Research Centre for Coal and Substainable Development (CRCCSD), University of Newcastle).

Further Information
Interested participants are requested to forward a curriculum vitae by no later than 16 November outlining the following:
Please send applications to kristy.atkins@newcastle.edu.au

Further information can be gained from either Dr Lamberton or Dr Roger Markwick.

Dr Don Lamberton
Creative Industries Research & Applications Centre
Queensland University of Technology
Email: d.lamberton@qut.edu.au
PH: (07) 3864 3761

Dr Roger Markwick
School of Humanities and Social Science
Email: roger.markwick@newcastle.edu.au
PH: (02) 4921 7122