Next Steps…Joining the Centre for Culture & Technology at Curtin

A question I have got quite frequently over the last few months is “…no but seriously, what are you actually doing…”. The answer has got more precise bit by bit but I truly didn’t leave PLOS with a specific plan for world domination. What I did want to do was find a way to combine a return to a hard core research focus with projects that really are very practical. I guess its the same problem with all research, how to combine theory with practice.

As a first step towards finding that perfect balance I’m very happy to be joining the Centre for Culture and Technology at Curtin University as Professor of Research Communications. This is really exciting for a number of reasons. First and most importantly the Centre is developing a research program around research communications that cuts right to the core of my current interests, how can communities more effectively leverage the tools that the internet and web provides, to communicate scholarship. Expect more on this in the next months.

Second there is the exceptional team at CCAT that links deep expertise in cultural studies, digital and new media, practical implementation of open access models beyond the journal, visualisation, as well as a whole range of experience in indigenous culture, a space in which challenges deeply any easy claim of objectivity coming from the sciences. Which links to the third reason this is exciting. The post is in a humanities department, perhaps on the surface a strange place for someone with a science background to land, but for me another logical step towards looking for new perspectives and new tools to help illuminate what are fundamentally problems of cultural change.

The post is 50% so I will continue to be working on other projects, both analysis and technology, and I will remain in the UK. I will certainly be in Australia more often but my role is in part to act as a connection from CCAT into the wider networks of scholarly communications communities globally. So that elusive balance remains to be fully struck, but now I have a great anchor to work from.