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This article examines the genesis, development and implementation of an interdisciplinary university cross-school research group (three individual schools) at Federation University in Australia. This CSRG is a consequence of both local and national calls for interdisciplinarity in university research and a direct response to the revised Strategic Goals and Policy document at Federation University. Using a conceptual framework based on a treatise by Jürgen Habermas (The theory of communicative action, Beacon Press, 1987) incorporating three socio-political levels (Lifeworld, Steering Media and Systems), we examined the ideals, processes and challenges in setting up an interdisciplinary research group within a traditional disciplinary-based university environment. Drawing on multiple data sets composed of member survey responses and interviews, email communication, online meetings, policy documents and co-leader feedback, we identified key resonant themes focussing on academic aspiration and motivation, the role of policy and practice, influence of grants and grant development across schools, mentoring and publishing. Using Habermas' conceptual framework and his overarching notion of Lifeworld with qualitative methods of data analysis, this article explores establishment of the CSRG, deeper academic aspirations and engagement for interdisciplinarity informing the group's formation and effectiveness of the processes used in this specific case. The impact on systems and policy is addressed together with the processes adopted to bring about interdisciplinary university collaboration. Evaluating the formation of the CSRG, the authors found that researchers placed a high value on opportunities to creatively collaborate in a cross-school and interdisciplinary environment, whereas obtaining grants and publishing research were seen by staff as indirect and less immediate benefits of collaboration. This article contributes to the growing body of research on interdisciplinary collaboration by applying a distinct theoretical and analytical framework to emphasise the potential of grassroots collaboration and the role of power and influence on research within universities.

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Abstract: Despite possessing a very large potential of renewable energy sources, Australia has lagged behind other developed countries in embracing renewable energy. Various programs and policies have been devised and implemented by Australian governments. Nevertheless, the proportion of renewable energy in electricity generation in Australia has not increased significantly. This paper seeks to explain why Australia has difficulties in adopting renewable energy by using the Political Aspect of Innovation (PAI) framework to examine the causes and barriers that have blocked the taking up of renewable energy. The PAI framework is concerned specifically with public innovation policy in Australia and the way it aims to encourage and support investment in new technology development. The paper finally outlines some future suggestions for charting the progression of the Australian energy system toward a transformative sustainable future. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper combines W.E.G. Salter's analysis of capital-embodied technical change with Kalecki's analysis of financing investment from retained profits to provide a Post Keynesian model of investment with process innovation, which is applied to data from Australian manufacturing industries. The approach to process innovation taken in this study is to identify new capital stock introduced through physical investment, which results in the older vintage stock being decommissioned as technologically obsolete. In the estimated model, the profit factor is used as a measure of the ability to invest, and the rate of labour productivity growth factor reveals the inducement to invest as this rate acts as a proxy for technical change in the Kaleckian investment-ordering model. The two factors combine to explain the accumulation process, both level and variability, and its link to technical change. In conclusion, this paper demonstrates that investment, incorporating technical change, enables industries to become sustainable into the uncertain future with varying states of investment instability. ...technical progress cannot be regarded as automatic and independent of accumulation. (Salter, 1966, p. 72) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global demand for web-based applications regarding financial products and services drives the financial sector to innovate through Information and Communication Technology (ICT) projects. The ICT projects are launched for the diffusion (spread) and implementation of new software or hardware by using web-based platforms in order to offer innovative financial products and services across the branch bank system. These projects are initiated, diffused, managed and implemented by global actors, so-called ICT change agents. Despite the increased recruitment of ICT change agents, there is relatively little research available regarding ICT change agents in financial services projects. Specifically, little consideration is given to the interaction process between formal and informal ICT change agents' roles. Based on a case study methodology in Australia and Germany, this research indicates that deadline-oriented projects drive ICT change agents to play various formal and informal roles. Their formal roles are performed in accordance with organisational settings and project management standards, whereas their informal operations are due to the rapid-changing and global nature of ICT technologies. The findings are summed up in a new framework which indicates that both types of roles impact on the outcomes of financial services technology projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how attitude to risk in the tourism industry impacts on the role of strategic alliances in developing technology-based knowledge. A survey of Australian travel sector businesses indicates that strategic alliances in tourism contribute only marginally to technology-based knowledge. The study further found that executives in the travel sector of tourism are risk-averse and this has implications for their perceptions regarding the contribution of alliances to technology-based knowledge. The findings imply that Australian industry policy towards tourism needs to encourage strategic alliances that have the potential to stimulate knowledge-based innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Delivering technology projects on time with a specified budget and resources has emerged as a strategic imperative in the highly competitive business world. One of the project challenges is increasingly tied to diffusion (spread) of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) innovation. This paper presents an empirical study that examines how ICT innovation is diffused within technology projects. Based on the case study methodology within 12 organisations in Australia and Germany, it emerged that ICT innovation is diffused formally alongside standard project management phases and informally within informal networks. The findings are synthesised in a new framework that seeks to inform theory and practice about formal and informal processes of ICT diffusion in technology projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses and speculates upon an interesting but unsettling development within the Australian economic profession. It argues that there is a schism within the profession when it comes to providing economic commentary to the media. We argue that only financial market economist voices dominate in the Australian media when it comes to commentary on current economic issues. This has implications for the acceptance of economic policy since these economists are apt to uphold the interests of their employer. In contrast, academic economists suffer from a lack of recognition and 'reach' in the media, which biases the promulgation of economic policy options in the broader community. We present evidence showing that today's generation of academic economists, in contrast to previous generations, is becoming reticent on matters of public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]