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Twenty years of activityIn 1989 with funds from three private trusts (Reichstein, Stegley and Myer) and the Victorian Government, the Action Research Issues Association established the Action Research Issues Centre (ARIC) in Ross House in the centre of Melbourne city. As a not-for-profit project, ARIC worked for fourteen years to assist human services, community and self help groups to carry out their own everyday research and evaluation. The 'Small centre with a big agenda" became well-known including internationally, and produced Australia's best-selling evaluation book 'Everyday Evaluation on the Run' (see Publications) as part of a state government Social Justice Strategy project. We then sought a more stable base in the form of an academic partnership after being defunded by a new state government, and established an association with the the Department of Social Inquiry & Community Studies at Victoria University where we set up an Action Research Issues Unit (ARIU) with a group of four experienced staff between 1999 and 2001. After the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research who had championed us left, we then established a new partnership with the Institute for Social Research at Swinburne University of Technology through the appointment of Yoland Wadsworth as Adjunct Professor in 2001. Yoland became convenor of an Action Research Program (ARP) in 2002 in association with the Action Research Issues Association. After several years of hard work to attract external funds from three philanthropic trusts, establish a program, receive accreditation for Australia's first postgraduate course in action research, attract another group of four experienced staff, and set up a centre of well-equipped offices, in 2006 a university restructure and change in priorities saw the end of ARP at Swinburne. We have now established the virtual Action Research Centre, a true ARC (ark), directly auspiced by the Action Research Issues Association that will not be subject to any further sinkings! |