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The purpose of this paper is to present data and discussion on history researcher development and research capacities in Australia and New Zealand, as evidenced in analysis of history PhD theses' topics.

The paper is based on two independent studies of history PhD thesis topics, using a standard discipline coding system.

The paper shows some marked differences in the Australian and New Zealand volumes and distributions of history PhDs, especially for PhDs conducted on non‐local/national topics. These differences reflect national researcher development, research capacities and interests, in particular local, national and international histories, and have implications for the globalisation of scholarship.

Thesis topics are used as a proxy for the graduate's research capacity within that topic. However, as PhD examiners have attested to the significance and originality of the thesis, this is taken as robust. The longitudinal nature of the research suggests that subsequent years' data and analysis would provide rich information on changes to history research capacity. Other comparative (i.e. international) studies would provide interesting analyses of history research capacity.

There are practical implications for history departments in universities, history associations, and government (PhD policy, and history researcher development and research capacity in areas such as foreign affairs).

There are social implications for local and community history in the knowledge produced in the theses, and in the development of local research capacity.

The work in this paper is the first to collate and analyse such thesis data either in Australia or New Zealand. The comparative analyses of the two datasets are also original.

In this keynote address, I use Georg Simmel’s sociology of social forms approach to amend Erving Goffman’s interaction order perspective into a contemporary analytical framework for empirical analysis of everyday life in our twenty-first century mediated social order. For Goffman, the interaction order provides a foundational basis for social order. As a cornerstone of the human condition, Goffman maintained that most of us spend our daily lives in the direct presence of others. However, rapid advancements in interactive media formats in the last few decades have given rise to an unprecedented twenty-first century interaction order. Many of us now also spend our everyday lives in the mediated presence of others, the effects of which parallel those of face-to-face interaction in importance. These changes, I contend, provide a necessary occasion to reimagine Goffman’s interaction order. In what follows, I first provide a brief synopsis of Goffman’s interaction order. Next, I outline the twenty-first century interaction order and illustrate the importance of Simmel’s formal sociology in amending Goffman’s original framework in relation to this unforeseen order. Finally, to highlight a few key points – I incorporate empirical examples from my work as it relates to police legitimacy. I conclude with some suggestions for future research and note a few limitations.

I've tried, in thinking about this talk, to live up to that provocative title. ‘To proceed pulpitically’, as Lord Chesterfield would say, I would like to start with a text from Lord Melbourne, that wise old counsellor of Queen Victoria, and it runs like this, ‘I wish I was as cocksure of anything as Tom Macauley is of everything.’ To put that in a slightly different way, ‘In an uncertain world it is more important to understand than to know’. You may just be intrigued that the new science curriculum has come to a view which I hope will soon be published, that in teaching science to children from the age of five to sixteen, perhaps no more than 40 per cent of the weighting should be on what they actually learn in terms of knowledge and skills. Equally important — perhaps more so — is that they should acquire scientific method, the ability to observe, to infer, to induce and to deduce, to test their conclusions in real life and to communicate these conclusions. So I believe that in an uncertain world this phrase, that it is better to understand than to know, deserves to have a wider currency.

This article is based on a paper presented at the 2005 IFLA World Library and Information Congress. It brings together the findings to date of the author's research project on research quality, to address issues related to research quality as a basis for the use of research evidence in evidence‐based practice.

The methods used include a literature review, a review of existing models for evaluating research evidence, and a pilot project based on a qualitative, naturalistic research design that employed content analysis and statistical techniques.

While a number of strategies have been developed for the evaluation of published research, all have their limitations. The same is true for the models that have been proposed for assisting practitioners to evaluate research evidence as a basis for evidence‐based practice. The literature review identified four different approaches to the assessment of quality in research reporting. The pilot study identified three different “value perceptions” held by experienced research evaluators that affected their research evaluations.

Although practitioners need to be able to evaluate research reports as a basis for evidence‐based practice, there is currently no one strategy that can be recommended as a fail‐safe tool to support this activity.

The article highlights the variety and limitations of existing strategies or models for evaluating research quality and suggests possible steps forward.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the high failure among African entrepreneurs post-2008 financial crisis. It evaluates the evidence of actual and perceived disadvantage and endogenous and exogenous factors affecting black and minority ethnic businesses.

The research is based on an interpretivist frame which uses a dialogic methodology. It uses in-depth interviews. The researchers framed discussion questions so as to invite the participants to articulate directly their experiences for the benefit of the readership, other existing African businesses and aspiring entrepreneurs.

The findings from the interviews with 20 leaders of “dead” businesses indicate the impact that place, people and poverty have on business failure and identify reasons for African business failure rates compared to other minorities. This study reveals that culture, an often understated variable, is critical in understanding the deeper reasons for the under-performance of African small entrepreneurs and its impacts on individual and collective lives.

Recovery solutions ought to be formulated from participants’ call for diversification, inter-cultural learning and integration as potential remedies. The research addresses the socio-economic problems encountered by owners of “dead” businesses. Policymakers and financial organisations ought to pay heed to the skills and resources that minorities offer as part of remedies for future enterprises.

Studies on failed African businesses are under-represented in the literature. This study identifies the important role of culture on the failure of small businesses owned by African migrants in the UK. It highlights the significant socio-economic and situational barriers that they navigate in quest for recognition and cultural integration through business endeavours.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the ways in which contemporary organisations are imposing their own private sanctions on fraudsters.

The research draws on primary data from interviews with counter fraud practitioners in the UK, secondary sources and case examples.

Such developments have been stimulated, at least in part, by the broader limitations of the criminal justice system and in particular a “fraud bottleneck”. Alongside criminal sanctions, many examples are provided of organisations employing private prosecutions innovative forms of civil sanction and “pseudo state” sanctions, most commonly civil penalties comparable to fines.

Such changes could mark the beginning of the “rebirth of private prosecution” and the further expansion of private punishment. Growing private involvement in state sanctions and the development of private sanctions represents a risk to traditional guarantees of justice. There are differences in which comparable frauds are dealt with by corporate bodies and thus considerable inconsistency in sanctions imposed. In contrast with criminal justice measures, there is no rehabilitative element to private sanctions. More research is needed to assess the extent of such measures, and establish what is happening, the wider social implications, and whether greater state regulation is needed.

Private sanctions for fraud are likely to continue to grow, as organisations pursue their own measures rather than relying on increasingly over-stretched criminal justice systems. Their emergence, extent and implications are not fully understood by researchers and therefore need much more research, consideration and debate. These private measures need to be more actively recognised by criminal justice policy-makers and analysts alongside the already substantial formal involvement of the private sector in punishment through prisons, electronic tagging and probation, for example. Such measures lack the checks and balances, and greater degree of consistency as laid out in sentencing guidelines, of the criminal justice system. In light of this, consideration needs to be given to greater state regulation of private sanctions for fraud. More also needs to be done to help fraudsters suffering problems such as debt or addiction to rebuild their lives. There is a strong case for measures beyond the criminal justice system to support such fraudsters to be created and publicly promoted.

The findings are of relevance to criminal justice policy-makers, academics and counter fraud practitioners in the public and private sectors.