Indigenous leadership in research in Australia

ABSTRACT

Indigenous research leadership can enhance research benefits to Indigenous communities. Our research investigates how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (henceforth Indigenous) leadership is expressed in the context of academic research, and how Indigenous leadership is supported or constrained in such context. This exploratory study includes semi-structured interviews with 20 Indigenous Australian researchers and document analysis. The thematic content analysis suggests that ‘Indigenous leadership in research’ refers to features, qualities or processes that enable certain outcomes, rather than formal ranking. Our research proposes a model connecting Indigenous leadership features in research with the achievement of (social) research impacts. The performance measures valued in academic research reflect a limited part of leadership as expressed by interviewees, hindering the achievement of higher hierarchical positions by those who holistically pursue such a leadership model. We suggest changes in the incentive structure and performance measures to better support Indigenous leadership in research.

KEYWORDS:

• Indigenous leadership
• academic leadership
• research impact
• leadership practices
• participatory research

Disclosure statement

The authors have no conflict of interest to disclose.

Role of the authors

A/Prof Felecia Watkin Lui, Prof Yvonne Cadet-James; and Prof Roxanne Bainbridge are Indigenous Australian researchers and Chief Investigators (CI) for this research (ARC IN150100011). Prof Janya McCalman is a non-Indigenous researcher and Chief Investigator for this research. All CIs were involved in the project’s design and its methodological approach. Ms Lynda Ah Mat is an Indigenous Australian researcher, and conducted participant interviews and analysis of the data with A/Prof Felecia Watkin Lui. Dr Milena Kiatkoski Kim is a non-Indigenous researcher responsible for co-developing the manuscript with A/Prof Felecia Watkin Lui; the literature review; and analysis and interpretation of the data. All authors edited the paper.

We sincerely thank the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research participants for their invaluable contributions and insights to this project. We also acknowledge and thank the following for their valuable contribution to the project and/or development of this paper: Professor Komla Tsey, Professor Martin Nakata, Mr Edward Watkin (LeadershipFIT), Professor Andy Day, Distinguished Professor Helene Marsh, Distinguished Professor Stewart Lockie, Professor Peter Case, Dr Naama Blatman-Thomas, Dr Daniel Grainger, Dr Monica Gratani.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council [IN150100011].