Early Years Education Collaborative Research Network Whole of Network Meeting

This week I have travelled to Melbourne to meet with colleagues from Charles Sturt University, Queensland University of Technology, and Monash University. There are around 70 attendees at our final Early Years Education Collaborative Research Network (CRN) Whole of Network Meeting. The CRN has been going for 3 years as a result of Australian government funding of $5.3 million to build capacity within early years research across the three universities. It has been such a productive three years of collaboration amongst PhD students, senior, mid and early career researchers.

This week some of the guest speakers have included:

• Assistant Minister for Education, The Hon Sussan Ley, MP
• Professor Andrew Vann, Vice Chancellor of CSU
• Professor Marian Simms, Executive Director of Social, Behavioural and Economic Sciences, Australian Research Council
• Karen Weston, Assistant General Manager, Quality Improvement Branch, Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, Victoria
• Professor Anne Graham, Ethics in Research Involving Children, Southern Cross University
• Professor Maggie Walter, Member of the steering committee of the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children, University of Tasmania
• Deborah Kikkawa and Fiona Skelton, Department of Social Services, Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children team

Research involving the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC) was a focus during the meeting and our recent publication using the LSIC data was highlighted in the poster displays. I was invited to provide a workshop titled "Improving your academic writing - both journal article and thesis writing".

Sarah Verdon, Deborah Kikkawa, Sharynne McLeod, Fiona Skelton

Prof Susan Danby (QUT - Future Fellow), Prof Marian Simms (ARC), Prof Sharynne McLeod (CSU - Future Fellow)