Crawford School of Public Policy

Two Crawford School academics have been successful in the latest Australian Research Council (ARC) funding round announced today.

Professor Miranda Stewart and Professor Sharon Bessell were both successful in the ARC’s Discovery Projects funding scheme, which aims to support fundamental research resulting in the development of new ideas and enhanced quality of life.

Associate Professor Sharon Bessell, Director of Research at Crawford School and the Director of the Children’s Policy Centre, was awarded $531,500 for a project to help find ways to alleviate child poverty in Indonesia. The project will contribute to more effective responses to child poverty in Indonesia, where over half the child population lives on less than $2 per day.

Associate Professor Bessell said the research will have global implications in helping move beyond adult-centric definitions of poverty.

“I am incredibly grateful to the ARC for funding this research – it is really funding a vision, a dream, that we can do much more to address childhood poverty in the developing world,” she said.

Professor Miranda Stewart, Director of the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute at Crawford School, secured $391,500 for a project to evaluate measures to combat tax avoidance by multinational enterprises. This project will help secure Australia’s corporate tax revenues, of which an estimated 10 per cent is threatened by tax base erosion and profit shifting.

Professor Stewart will work with Professor Alfred Tran from the ANU College of Business and Economics to expand knowledge of tax behaviour and provide timely and critical advice for policymakers on improving the integrity of corporate tax.

Acting Director of Crawford School, Professor Robert Breunig, says Professor Bessell and Professor Stewart’s success reflects the leading role Crawford School plays in developing public policy.

“Congratulations to Sharon and Miranda for their excellent news today. The ARC’s Discovery Project identifies important and high quality research, and their selection of Crawford projects again demonstrates the essential role the School plays in shaping public policy in Asia and the Pacific.”

The projects were among a total of 91 awarded to the ANU, which altogether received more than $43 million in the latest ARC funding round.