Australia’s Diaspora Advantage: Realising the potential for building transnational business networks with Asia

Launch of the Australia’s Diaspora Advantage report

Australia’s Diaspora Advantage: Realising the potential for building transnational business networks with Asia, was launched by Australia’s Chief Scientist, Dr Alan Finkel AO FTSE at the National Library of Australia on 26 May 2016

• A transcript of Professor Fazal Rizvi’s launch address

Expert Working Group

ACOLA, for its established ability to deliver interdisciplinary evidence-based research that draws on specialist expertise from Australia’s Learned Academies, convenes the SAF11 Expert Working Group (EWG) to guide the development of a targeted study that draws input from several disciplines to create a well-considered, balanced and peer-reviewed report.

The role of the EWG is to provide strategic oversight and provide expert input, analysis and provocative thinking.

Professor Kam Louie (Co-Chair)	Professor Fazal Rizvi (Co-Chair)
Mr Kevin Hobgood-Brown	Dr Marlene Kanga
Professor Aibing Yu

 

Peer Reviewers

This report has been reviewed by an independent panel of experts. Members of this review panel were not asked to endorse the Report’s conclusions and findings. The Review Panel members acted in a personal, not organisational, capacity and were asked to declare any conflicts of interest.

ACOLA gratefully acknowledges their contribution.

Professor Chennupati Jagadish	Professor Anthony Reid
Mr Neville Roach	Dr Ziggy Switowski

 

Project Funding and Support

ACOLA gratefully acknowledges the contribution of the Australian Government through the Commonwealth Science Council; Australian Research Council and the Office of the Chief Scientist. This research was funded by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council.

 

Acknowledgements

The Expert Working Group would like to express its gratitude to the individuals and organisations who have contributed to this project through interviews, the Brisbane and Adelaide focus groups, online survey and consultations. The names of those who agreed to be acknowledged are listed in this report under the section Evidence Gathering.

We would also like to express our sincere thanks to the members of ACOLA’s Project Steering Committee and especially its chair Professor Michael Barber, for its guidance and confidence in our work. We have much appreciated the support and advice of Professors Peter McPhee, Ruth Fincher, Graeme Turner and Paul Greenfield. We want to thank in particular Professor John Fitzgerald, the president of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, for his inspiration and commitment to this project.

We have also greatly benefitted from the helpful comments provided by Professor Ien Ang FAHA of the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University; Professor Peter Drysdale of the Crawford School of Economics and Government at The Australian National University; and Drs Helen Feist and George Tan at the University of Adelaide Australian Population and Migration Research Centre.

We are also very grateful for the support of the following: Mr Jeffery Wang; Ms Sonia Sadiq Gandhi; Mr Ravi Bhatia; Mr Matthew Benjamin; Ms Georgina Downer and AsiaLink’s Diplomacy, Business and Education divisions; Ms Andrea Myles and the Australia China Millennial Project; Mr David Douglas and the Australia China Youth Association; Mr James Keene and the Australia India Business Council; Dr Jane O’Leary and the Diversity Council Australia; Mr Tyler Zhang and the Brisbane Chinese Professionals Network; the Australia China Business Council, FC Business Solutions; India Link; and The University of Tasmania Alumni Association.

Our profound gratitude must also go to Dr Christina Parolin and Dr Kylie Brass of the Australian Academy of the Humanities both for their intellectual support and for providing support services on behalf of ACOLA. We also thank the other learned academies for their support of our research work — the Australian Academy of the Social Sciences, the Australian Academy of Science, the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. We acknowledge also the advice provided by Dr Will Howard on behalf of the Office of the Chief Scientist. We are grateful to the ACOLA Secretariat for its support, especially to Mr Andy Jones, Dr Renee Dutton and Ms Navi Randhawa. We would also like to thank the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University, the School of Humanities and Languages at the University of New South Wales and the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne for their administrative support.

We want to gratefully acknowledge also the authors of our two commissioned reports: Mr Johnathan Cheng and Dr Xuchun Liu. They provided information and analysis we needed in a most timely and effective manner. Acknowledged is Ms Cinden Lister editorial expertise, advice and efficiency; and Ms Kate Ritchie and Chin Communications for the Chinese translation of the Executive Summary. Enormously helpful also was the research assistance provided by Ms Kate Elliott. In the development of our online survey, thanks to Mr Allen Wang, Mr Qi Luo, Ms Hui Zhu and Ms Tengfang Zhang from the Monash University- Southeast University and Mr Ranjit Nadarajah who provided most useful feedback.

Finally, we would like to thank Dr Yasmin Tambiah, who as Project Manager did much of the administration and research for the project during its earlier stages, establishing the parameters of our work and steering us through its complexities. Her input has been immense, and we have greatly appreciated her expertise and guidance. However, working as we did within such a short time-line, this project would not have been possible without the immense contributions of our senior researcher, Dr Julia Evans, who not only conducted the interviews and collected most of the data, but also drafted much of the report, and all this in a manner that was always cheerful, collegial and highly professional.

 

Project Managers

Dr Julia Evans, Australian Academy of the Humanities

Dr Kylie Brass, Australian Academy of the Humanities

Dr Yasmin Tambiah, Australian Academy of the Humanities

Project services provided by the Australian Academy of the Humanities on behalf of ACOLA