Summer and Winter Research Programs

The UQ Winter Research Scholarship Program provides students with an opportunity to gain research experience working alongside some of the University's leading academics and researchers.

Each year the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry offers research placement opportunities for students through the UQ Winter Research Scholarship Program.

Applications will open for the Winter Research Program 2021 on Monday, 22 March 2021 and will close 11.59pm on Sunday, 18 April 2021.

Participation is open to students with some background in our School's disciplines: Classics and Ancient History, Studies in Religion, Philosophy or History.  Below is the list of projects on offer.

Current Projects

2021

1. Project title: Modern Marks on Ancient Artefacts

Project duration: 5 weeks - 21 June to 23 July 2021

Expected hours per week: 20 hours/week

This project contributes to ongoing research at the RD Milns Antiquities Museum into the various modern marks that appear on its collection of ancient artefacts. These marks include museum accession numbers, private collection identification numbers, handwritten labels and notes, export tags, and residues from these markings.

These modern marks are part of the story of these ancient artefacts, and can be linked to complex concepts in modern museums including provenance, identification, colonialism, looting, ethics, and collection management.

Winter Scholars will work with the Manager/Curator of the Museum to survey the antiquities museum collection for different kinds of these marks, document them, research the associated history of different marks, and update the museum collection database accordingly. This ongoing work will contribute to a public database of these marks to aid other museums around the world in researching the history of their collections.

Expected outcomes and deliverables

• Develop Research Skills
• Experience the operations of a small university museum
• Develop knowledge in the areas of provenance research and museum documentation
• Develop database and other specialist software skills
• Contribute to a planned future exhibition of the Antiquities Museum
• Contribute to a planned online database of the project’s findings.

Suitable for

• Advanced Undergraduate or postgraduate students in the areas of:
• Ancient History
• Archaeology
• Museum Studies
• Art History

2. Project Title: The Ethics of Climate Change Education

Project duration: 4 weeks - 21 June 2021 - 16 July 2021

Expected hours per week: 20 hours/week

Climate change is a complex and pressing problem which requires multiple solutions from all areas of human inquiry. For education, climate change raises not only problems of how to teach students about climate change effectively and accurately according to the latest science, but also how to teach students about climate change ethically. Climate change itself, and certainly the solutions to it raise a myriad of ethical challenges that can be hard to navigate, especially for those who lack ethical training. The project seeks to explore and address the challenges that teachers face. 

Expected outcomes and deliverables

The student will produce a literature review and a paper to be submitted for publication on the ethics of climate change education aimed at advancing the debate surrounding teacher training in relation to climate change and environmental education more broadly.

Suitable for

Students with background and interest in climate change, ethics or education. 

Supervisor

Dr Simone Thornton

Lecturer in Philosophy

Further information

Past Projects

2020

Fuzzy Logics for Graded Reasoning in Applied Contexts

2018-2019

Experiential Learning and Multicultural Citizenship