Governance and Structure
Structure
The Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS) is headed by Director and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research Professor Robert Wasson. Each of the schools governed by the IAS are in turn headed by a director. The Institute also employs three chairs and while they sit administratively with the School for Social and Policy Research they are directly responsible to the Director of the Institute. The structure of the IAS is represented below.
All of the directors within the IAS have competing roles that often mean they are not available at short notice for Charles Darwin University (CDU) business. CDU’s systems and processes are constructed in a way that demands authorisation from the Head of Schools on such items as:
- All recruitment panels for academic position above level B and all administrative positions HEW#8 and above
- All travel, leave, recruitment forms
- Selected financial authorisations
- Performance management
- PhD supervision forms
- Grant application forms
- Attendance at a variety of ‘Head of School’ meetings.
As the directors are not available on a regular basis it is necessary to have a standard delegation process, as follows:
Requests for information etc. should continue to be filtered through the director’s offices, either through the directors themselves or the administrative support systems like the business managers or executive officers; however authorisation and participation can be made through the theme/division leaders.
Theme leaders
Each of the three schools within the Institute has theme/division leaders. Theme/division leaders within the schools have the authorisation over their particular themes and the resources within them. Theme leaders have intimate knowledge of the themes, projects and works within them and therefore have the ability to make informed decisions on most HR, financial and general administrative issues. It is recognised that wider school matters will continue to be authorised by the directors unless they delegate to other staff members, including the senior administrative and project staff.
The theme leaders for each school are as follows:
School for Social Policy and Research |
|
| Education System Reform | Associate Professor Tess Lea |
| Family, Child and Youth | Dr Gary Robinson |
| People, Place and Economy | Professor Tony Barnes (interim) |
| Health Services Development | Professor Lesley Barclay |
| Tropical Knowledge | Professor Stephen Garnett |
| Desert Knowledge | Vacant |
School for Environmental Research |
|
| Livelihoods and Policy | Dr Adam Drucker |
| Aquatic Ecosystems and Water Resources | Associate Professor Michael Douglas |
Wildlife and Landscape Science |
Associate Professor Michael Lawes |
Menzies School of Health Research |
|
| Environments, Services and Populations Research | Associate Professor Joan Cunningham |
| Tropical and Emerging Infectious Diseases | Professor Bart Currie |
| Education and Training | Dr Kate Senior |
Note: Menzies School of Health Research (MSHR) has a very different organisational structure from the other schools in the IAS. MSHR has a financial controller and an operations manager who also have delegations to sign off on a number of processes outlined in this submission, and which would fall under the theme leaders for the other schools at the IAS. This guideline has been prepared simply to describe the University process only.
