The Sir Robert Menzies Centre for Australian Studies was established at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, in 1982. Initially known as the Australian Studies Centre and funded by the Australian Government with additional funding from the Menzies Memorial Trust, the Centre assumed its present name in 1988 when the Menzies Foundation took over full financial responsibility. More recently (1995), the Centre has received financial support from the Australian Government and from September 1993 Monash University has funded an additional lectureship. The Centre has three academic staff, and two administrative/secretarial staff.
The Centre's object is to promote Australian Studies at British and European universities. In its broadest manifestation, the Centre is the Australian cultural base in London, providing a highly regarded forum for the discussion of intellectual and cultural issues in Australian Studies. The Centre�s conferences and seminars attract a diverse audience and help to produce a more comprehensive, detailed and balanced perception of Australian life and culture than is popularly available. Staff at the Centre organize a seminar programme during each academic term and regular book launches and readings by Australian writers. A number of major conferences are organized each year, often in association with other institutions and organizations. The Centre also publishes a regular newsletter, working papers and the text of its two annual public lectures - The Sir Robert Menzies Memorial Lecture and the Trevor Reece Memorial Lecture.
The Centre offers, as well, an Australian bridge into Europe, both Western and Eastern. Its staff are closely involved with the British Australian Studies Association (BASA) and the European Association of Studies on Australia (EASA). They frequently lecture at universities throughout Europe and the Centre has provided books and other resources to assist in the development of new Australian Studies courses. In particular, the Centre continues to build on or develop ties with Eastern European intellectual endeavours to add to its existing close connections with major Western European centres of learning, research and planning. A number of scholarships and fellowships are administered by the Centre to promote the exchange of academics and postgraduate students between Britain and Australia, and Europe and Australia.
Centre staff teach the London University MA in Area Studies (Australia), a BA level Australian history course and supervise PhD and MPhil students. The Centre serves as a research centre and base for visiting academics and post-graduates from Australia and elsewhere, and can provide study facilities study facilities for academic visitors. The library at the ICS has the most comprehensive collection of Australian material in the social sciences (more than 8,000 titles) in Britain, and the Centre is close to the British Library, the various University of London libraries and within striking distance of the Public Record Office (PRO). The Centre is particularly keen to encourage academics and research students to use it as their London base.
These activities and the Centre's lively connections in Europe make it an important adjunct - a different kind of bridge - for the economic, trade, political and other approaches and overtures that the Australian nation will make in Europe till and beyond the end of the century.
The Centre has a small library of Australian material located in the Burney Room (Room 22) of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. MA students are able to borrow materials from this library and to use this room for quiet study between 9:30 am and 5:30 pm, and in the evening if arrangements are made beforehand.
The Institute of Commonwealth Studies Library is in the same building and other useful libraries - the University Library at Senate House in particular - are in the immediate vicinity. Students should note that the Institute for Historical Research located in Senate House holds many seminars each week on historical research and methodology.
The Institute of Commonwealth Studies is in the Bloomsbury precinct of the University of London, close to the University Library in Senate House, to other institutes for advanced study, to many of the large multi-faculty schools and colleges of the University and to the British Library and British Museum. The Institute, established by the University of London in 1949 to encourage research on the Commonwealth, provides research facilities for academics and postgraduate students from the University of London and other universities throughout the Commonwealth and the rest of the world. The Institute organises regular seminars, conferences and symposiums on a variety of social, economic and political topics associated with the Commonwealth, and postgraduate students are encouraged to attend these.
The Institute library is an invaluable resource for students of Australian Studies, and indeed houses the most comprehensive collection in the UK of Australian material, dating from the 1940s, in the social sciences. The library is open on weekdays from 9:30 am until various times in the evening. Students should enquire at the library for a full list of opening times. Although this is a research rather than a borrowing library, on application postgraduate students may be able to borrow books overnight or on the weekends.
Dr TOM GRIFFITHS, BA (Melbourne), MA (Melbourne), PhD (Monash), Lecturer in Australian Studies. [email protected]
Mr NICK ECONOMOU, BA (Melbourne), MA (Melbourne) Monash Lecturer in Australian Studies [email protected]
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