Winter Research Scholarship Program 2026
Applications open 23 March and close 12 April 2026
https://employability.uq.edu.au/summer-winter-research
Importing Celtic sporting cultures: a study of the development of GAA in Australia
Project Duration:
Four weeks in duration, from Monday 29 June to Friday 24 July 2026. Hours of engagement: 10am – 4pm Monday to Friday, with 1-hour lunch break (25 hours per week). The project can be completed under a remote working arrangement.
Project Description:
Context: The influence, legacy and transported heritage of the Irish cultural diaspora in colonised Australia have undergone some significant academic scrutiny. However, the histories of the development of related Irish sporting practices and activities, integral to Irish culture in Australia, have not been subject to the same critical examination.
In Ireland, the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) demonstrate enthusiastic support for their game. They celebrate its international development and its place in Irish diasporic cultural practice. However, as often occurs through systemic colonialist subjugation and disruption, aspects of Irish sporting histories in other countries are often lost, silenced or marginalised.
Very little is known of the histories and the development of contemporary men’s and women’s Gaelic Football competitions in Australia, including its key periods of growth, individuals central to that growth, and the factors influencing its evolution into the vibrant competitions its communities harbour today.
Hypothesis: Mapping the game’s development and documenting its relevant histories should facilitate and better situate the physical activity within the broader human context and illuminate the ways community level Gaelic Football has and continues to reflect, shape, and influence an immigrant culture, its values, and its identity.
Objective: This pilot study seeks to identify and examine gaps in knowledge around Irish sporting practices and related activities, with a particular focus on Gaelic Football.
Aims:
- Map the historical development and the contemporary state of play of Gaelic Football in Australia, including the game’s documentation, participation and community insight of GAA.
- In documenting the game, its community and its subsequent narratives, the project seeks to support the community in their activities, including engagement and participation; and enable appropriate contributions to relevant research fields in creative writing, sports writing and sports histories; and
- Augment network of connections for HASS Seed Partnership funding to develop a larger funded study that supports advancement and formalisation of appropriate partnerships with Australian and Irish Gaelic Athletic Associations and related scholars and academic institutions.
Approach: This research project is the pilot study for a larger project, which intends to recover, shed light on and give voice to some of the hidden histories of and share and celebrate Gaelic Football in Australia, including the recent emergence of women’s game.
This pilot study employs archival and desktop research and practice as research methods along with contextual and thematic analysis to inform production of a small number of co-authored creative writing research outputs, including creative nonfiction and peer-reviewed journal articles that enable appropriate contributions to relevant research fields in creative writing, sports writing and sports histories.
Partnerships: This project aims to connect with Gaelic Football clubs, their representatives in Australia; with Celtic Cultural Studies scholars, including Paddy Hoey, Paul Rouse, and Jonathon Ervine at John Moores Liverpool, England, University College Dublin, Ireland and Bangor University, Wales, respectively; and contribute to work being undertaken by the Celtic identity and sport project network.
Investigator: Dr Lee McGowan is an experienced sports writing and sports histories researcher with an established research track record. He has experience in managing student-led research programs that contribute to creative outputs and academic publication.
Expected outcomes and deliverables:
Applicants will review a range of sports writing texts and publications concerned with Irish sporting histories, the GAA, and related activities in Australia. They will be expected to summarise relevant grey material and identify promising leads.
Applicants will be guided in and carry out independent research, including development of an annotated bibliography of academic publications related to the Irish Diaspora, its sporting activities in Australia, and in other countries; and where possible identify aspects of the field for further, future, study.
Applicants will gain (and or hone) research skills in data gathering, analysis and evaluation, and in communicating findings including in drafting reviews and reports. Applicants will experience collaborative research practices and gain insight and understanding and be acknowledged for their contributions in related published works.
Suitable for:
This project is open to students with a background in creative writing, or publishing, or journalism. It is also open to any student/s with a background in social sciences (e.g., sociology) or humanities (e.g., cultural studies, history, geography) and a keen interest in the themes of and relationship between sports, sports writing and community.
It is suitable for students with interest in higher degree research and those who have ambition to publish works of non-fiction.
Honours and/or Postgraduate Coursewrok students and motivated 2nd/3rd year Undergraduate students will be considered.
Supervisor: Dr Lee McGowan
Streets of your town: Mapping Brisbane’s street press
Project Duration:
This is a 4-week project and will involve a commitment of about 30 hours a week. The work can be completed on or off campus.
Project Description:
Streets of your town aims to be the first systematic examination of Brisbane's street press, a vital yet overlooked aspect of the city’s cultural history. In addition to Brisbane's big three—Scene, Rave, and Time Off—the project will be collecting histories of a variety of local street press from this era, including Queensland Pride, The Cane Toad Times, QNews, and B.U.M.S, among others.
Using a combination of interviews and archival research, the project investigates the role that these publications played in the cultural mapping of Brisbane, helping us navigate—in an era before smart phones and social media—our sense of identity, place, and community.
Expected outcomes and deliverables:
The project is collecting audio-visual interviews with key figures from Brisbane’s street press era (eg, editors, writers, venue owners, musicians). Winter scholars will assist in interview production, editing, and analysis.
The interviews will contribute to a publicly available online oral history project on AustLit, the national database of Australian storytelling and print culture. In addition to this Non-Traditional Research Output, the interviews will also contribute valuable qualitative data to the project’s scholarly publications (ie book and journal articles).
Suitable for:
Applicants will need to have completed or be willing to complete training in video production and editing. Students studying journalism or communication are preferred but other students with a background and skills in video production/editing are also welcome to apply.
Primary Supervisor: Dr Nat Collie and Dr Caroline Wilson-Barnao
Association for the Study of Australian Literature: Conference Support & Project Management
Project Duration:
4 weeks. The applicant will be required on-site for most of the project.
Project Description:
In 2026, UQ is hosting the annual Association for the Study of Australian Literature Conference from June 29 to July 3. The conference will be held at 308 Queen Street, one of UQ’s city campuses. This project will include working with the conference convenors, Prof Anna Johnston and A/Prof Maggie Nolan, to ensure the smooth running of the conference. Tasks may involve liaising with conference delegates, supporting keynote speakers as required, liaising with the venue, working on scheduling, and providing support with any required conference collateral.
Expected outcomes and deliverables:
Scholars will gain experience in scholarly event management and the opportunity to meet and network with significant writers and scholars in the field of Australian literary studies.
Suitable for:
Outgoing and hospitable students with an interest in operations and an attention to details. Knowledge of Australian literature and Australian literary culture would be an advantage.
Primary Supervisor: Prof. Anna Johnston
We Are All Preppers Now: Manuscript development support
Project Duration:
Four-week duration, from 29 June - 24 July 2026
Hours of engagement: Negotiable. Suggested 10am – 4pm Monday to Friday, with 1-hour lunch break (25 hours per week).
The project can be completed under a remote working arrangement.
Project Description:
Background: We Are All Preppers Now is a book-length creative writing project (creative nonfiction; literary journalism), investigating survivalists, doomsday preppers, climate activists and other subcultures of imminent collapse in Australia and around the world. This book project is under contract with Scribe Publications, for release in early 2027.
Briefly defined, a ‘prepper’ is someone who expects to experience societal and/or ecological collapse within their lifetime, and who actively takes steps (‘preps’) for such an eventuality.
Aim: chart, document and understand the proliferation of prepper and prepper-adjacent worldviews, activities and identities around the world, especially since 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Expected outcomes and deliverables:
Applicants will be expected to support Dr Doig with developing the draft manuscript, in advance of Doig completing an intense period of writing (July – December 2026).
Tasks include:
- Reviewing draft manuscript (ms) and identifying sections to be expanded
- Listening to interview recordings, and/or reading interview transcripts, to locate verbatim quotes referred to – but not yet integrated into – the draft ms
- Conducting follow-up research into people and events mentioned in the draft ms
- Other manuscript-development tasks, as agreed upon
Students will be credited as ‘research assistants’ in the ‘acknowledgements’ section of We Are All Preppers Now. Students will gain key insights into the book writing process and the book publishing industry
Suitable for:
This project will appeal to students who want to gain a greater understanding of the process of developing a book-length nonfiction manuscript for a general (non-specialist) audience. It is open to students with a background in creative writing, or publishing, or journalism. It is also open to any student/s with a background in social sciences (e.g., sociology, anthropology) or humanities (e.g., cultural studies, history) and a keen interest in the themes of prepping / climate crisis / societal breakdown.
It is particularly suitable for students with ambitions to publish non-fiction books in the future.
Honours and/or Postgraduate Coursewrok students and motivated 2nd/3rd year Undergraduate students will be considered.
Primary Supervisor: Dr Tom Doig
Australia’s Changing media landscape: One Nation, Popularism, and Indigenous Australians
Project Duration:
This is a winter project that will last for 4 weeks and require 20 hours of engagement per week.
The research supervisors will provide onsite orientation and research training. Week 1 will require onsite attendance while weeks 2-4 will have the option for hybrid attendance.
Project Description:
The rapid rise in popularity of One Nation across Australia signals a shift in the Australian political landscape.
The project aims to reveal how Australian mainstream media outlets understand and represent the One Nation party and their policies.
We hypothesise that One Nation, a party once considered to be a fringe pariah, is now being legitimised by Australia’s conservative legacy media.
This project examines a sample of mainstream media coverage of One Nation in the lead up to the upcoming South Australian state election. In a post-voice referendum context, we are particularly interested in how the mainstream legacy media frames One Nation’s relationship with Indigenous issues.
Expected outcomes and deliverables:
The student will be expected to read and code samples of news coverage and contribute to regular project meetings. The student participating in this project will gain skills on critical discourse analysis, inductive coding, and collaborative academic writing.
The project will result in two publications (Q1/Q2) in communication, media, and/or journalism journals such as Media International Australia, Continuum, Discourse, Context and Media, or Critical Studies in Media Communication.
Suitable for:
This project is open to students who have experience in disciplines such as media studies, mommunication, film & TV, or Journalism.
This project will appeal to students who want to learn more critical discourse-based research methods with reference to coding and data analysis.
Primary Supervisor: Dr Alex Beare. Dr. Richard Murray will be collaborating with Dr. Beare on this project.
AustLit Fryer Connections
Project Duration: 4 weeks and applicant will be required on-site for the project..
Project Description: This project involves looking across colonial records in AustLit and holdings in the Fryer library to make sure that the records and data are accurate and aligned.
Expected outcomes and deliverables: Scholars will develop an understanding of AustLit’s scope and data model and will gain experience in data collection and data curation.
Suitable for: This project would be suitable to scholars interested in data-driven and archival approaches to literary studies. Knowledge of Australian literary studies would be a distinct advantage.
Primary Supervisor: A/Prof Maggie Nolan
AustLit/ Women of Brisbane research project
Project Duration: 4 weeks and applicant will be required on-site for the project..
Project Description: This project involves building a new work on AustLit based on the existing Women of Brisbane project, by Louise Martin-Chew and local Indigenous artisit Judy Watson. The project involves turning the existing pdf into a full-text searchable resource housed on AustLit.
Expected outcomes and deliverables: Scholars may gain experience in data collection and curation, database structures and thesauri. They will also build significant collaborations with local Brisbane artist and writers.
Suitable for: This would be ideal for a scholar with an interest in the Brisbane art scene, the intersection between art and literature and who are interested in gaining knowledge about databases and data structures.
Primary Supervisor: A/Prof Maggie Nolan
How to Apply?
Summer and Winter Research Scholarship Programs - https://employability.uq.edu.au/summer-winter-research
If you require further assistance, please contact the School of Communication and Arts Research research.commarts@uq.edu.au