The Northern Institute is a hub for research expertise, leadership and impact for stakeholders. Northern Institute’s researchers are recognised nationally and internationally as leaders in their fields.
Our research teams work through partnership with context experts locally and content experts internationally to bring together a deep understanding of people, policy and place.
Our researchers explore and adapt theory and methodologies to key research issues.
Researchers focus on sharing research outcomes through a number of avenues that relate to the range of stakeholders we work with.
Our capacity is developed through the involvement with PhD and Masters by Research students who can examine issues deeply, through partnership with stakeholders as well as the Public Policy postgraduate programs offered online to policy makers and policy partners internationally.
Our research makes a difference for our stakeholders from working with people on the ground, analysing data to understand the situation or supporting stakeholders in government, industry and community to ask and answer different questions.
We invite policy and research leaders to connect to stakeholders through our forums in person and online.
Our Research Themes
CONTEMPORARY INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE & GOVERNANCE
The Contemporary Indigenous Knowledge & Governance group attends to organisational knowledge and culture practices in the process of designing new institution and governance practices.
DEMOGRAPHY & GROWTH PLANNING
The Demography & Growth Planning team builds knowledge and expertise on the relationships between the dynamic populations of remote and sparsely populated areas to economic, social and political conditions in those regions.
EVALUATION & KNOWLEDGE IMPACT
The Evaluation & Knowledge Impact team specialises in conducting evaluations that help understand the ways policy and community partnerships are utilised to improve outcomes from public service delivery strategies.
REGIONAL, ECONOMIC & WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
The Regional, Economic & Workforce Development theme explores the questions, issues, challenges and opportunities for planning, developing, implementing and supporting integrated and sustainable regional and economic development in diverse contexts.
Cross Thematic Groups
ORAL LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY GROUP
The Oral Language Technology group is designing innovate methods for learning, processing, and revitalising oral languages. The group brings together strengths in computational linguistics, language revitalisation, and web technologies. We work with oral languages and cultures, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous. We focus on Northern Australia, a region of great linguistic diversity.
CENTRAL AUSTRALIAN RESEARCH GROUP
The Central Australian Research Group (CARG) undertakes interdisciplinary research in areas of social and public policy in regional and remote contexts that are critically important to central Australia and its near neighbours.
NORTHERN AUSTRALIA RESEARCH GOVERNANCE GROUP
The Northern Australia Governance Research Group are researchers and practitioners who share a commitment to collaborative research in designing just and equitable futures for the North, placing the Northern Institute and its collaborators at the forefront of research and development opportunities in the region.
INDIGENOUS ENTERPRISE HUB
The Indigenous Enterprise Hub partners with Aboriginal organisations in remote and urban areas of northern Australia to provide the basis of creating organisational development and sustainable models for Indigenous enterprises that are based on socially, culturally, economically and environmentally sustainable livelihoods.
REGIONAL & REMOTE SERVICE DELIVERY INITIATIVE
The Regional and Remote Service Delivery initiative aims to support agencies working to improve service delivery by providing accurate and relevant data analysis and research on sensitive topics and in complex contexts.
NI INTERNATIONAL
NI International provides global mobility to support NI researchers, students and research collaborators to create international links and access international resources. It builds on the Northern Institute’s international reputation and networks, to facilitate access to international expertise and research resources.