Media Release
June 26 2008
UniSA helps to build the global picture on work and life
UniSA’s
Centre
for Work + Life will play a key role in an international team set to
conduct one of the biggest worldwide studies on work and employment in a
global context.
The team led by le Centre de recherche interuniversitaire sur la mondialisation et le travail (CRIMT - Inter-University Research Centre on Globalization and Work) will include South Australian work and life expert, Professor Barbara Pocock, and has secured one of only four $2.5 million grants awarded this year by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
The grant has been awarded under the Council’s Major Collaborative Research Initiatives program (MCRI).
Key research issues include the cross-border organisation of production and care, citizenship in the workplace and the implementation of public policies that redistribute work rights and risks, new forms of collective representation, and the social aspects of comparative institutional advantage.
Director of the Centre for Work + Life at UniSA’s Hawke Research Institute for Sustainable Societies, Prof Pocock says to truly understand the impacts of globalisation on people’s working lives you need to examine the local and international scene.
“In a globalising labour market, where change at work increasingly affects workers and their families across borders, it is vital to have international links between researchers – to share ideas, theories and understandings,” Prof Pocock said.
“This project will forge invaluable international research relationships that will contextualise the Australian experience of change in the working world.
“It will also help to launch these very important socio-economic issues onto a bigger stage so that we can analyse global trends and the important shifts that are happening for workers worldwide.”
The CRIMT team will examine the involvement of institutional players in discussion about change and inform a better understanding of the capabilities required to thrive in this new environment.
Director of CRIMT and lead researcher Professor Gregor Murray says globalization is rewriting the rules in workplaces across the globe.
“People in the world of work need maps and new ways to talk about
change but the ones on offer in many countries are just not up to the
task,” Professor Murray said.
“This international project is about developing new tools, new
capabilities and new institutions so that players in the world of work
can see current trends as an opportunity to shape the kind of society
they want to live in.”
CRIMT is an inter-university and inter-disciplinary research centre that brings together researchers from around the world to look at the theoretical and practical challenges of institutional renewal for work and employment in a global context. Its director, Prof Gregor Murray and co-directors, Jacques Bélanger and Christian Lévesque are located at Université de Montréal, Université Laval and HEC Montréal.
CRIMT includes 75 researchers from 16 Canadian universities and 25
institutions and universities from 10 other countries.
The Centre for Work + Life is national Australian research centre,
within the Hawke Institute for Sustainable Societies, University of
South Australia
Contact for interviews
-
Professor Barbara Pocock, office (08) 8302 4194 email Barbara.pocock@unisa.edu.au
Media contact
-
Michèle Nardelli office (08) 8302 0966 mobile 0418 823 673 email
michele.nardelli@unisa.edu.au