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Young researcher recognised for commitment to regional development

June 26, 2006

ByrnesJoel.thumb.JPGA young academic from The University of New England has won Australian Government sponsorship to attend an international conference that will broaden his perspective on a subject – regional development – on which he is already an authority.

Joel Byrnes, a research student and junior lecturer in UNE’s School of Economics, will attend the Australian Government’s “Growing Regions” conference in Brisbane next month. He is one of 15 young people from around Australia who have been chosen as government-sponsored delegates to the conference.

Mr Byrnes (pictured here), who is Deputy Director of the UNE Centre for Local Government, said the conference would give him an opportunity to promote the work of the Centre – which is already well known throughout NSW – among the national and international delegates.

It would also allow him to discuss his current doctoral research project, concerning the delivery of water services to regional cities in NSW and Victoria, with leading administrators of such services. (“For example, Ken Matthews, the Chairman of the Australian Government National Water Commission, will be among the speakers at the conference,” he said.)

Mr Warren Truss, Australia’s Minister for Transport and Regional Services, will give one of the opening addresses at the conference, which will begin on Tuesday 25 July and continue till Thursday 27 July. In announcing the names of the young sponsored delegates, Mr Truss said: “These 15 young people from across Australia have demonstrated a commitment to developing sustainable futures for themselves and their communities.” He added that they would “gain valuable insights into innovation and best practice in regional development, with the aim of implementing some of these strategies in their own communities and organisations”.

The many distinguished speakers at the conference will include Slawomir Tokarski (a member of the Cabinet for Regional Policy, European Union), Odile Sallard (from the Public Governance and Territorial Development Directorate of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), Mark Drabenstott (Vice-President and Director of the Centre for the Study of Rural America at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City), Maria Helena Henriques Meuller (Head of the Section for Youth in the United Nations Bureau of Strategic Planning), and Edward Bergman (Director of the Institute for Regional Development and Environment at Vienna University of Economics and Business).

Mr Byrnes, through UNE’s Centre for Local Government, has recently contributed to an inquiry into the financial sustainability of local government in NSW, and, acting as a consultant for a local government council in Western Australia, has assessed a State Government proposal for the amalgamation of local councils in that State. His PhD research is a comparison of the efficiency of water services in regional urban areas of NSW (where those services are administered by 126 locally-elected councils) and Victoria (where the administration comprises 15 regional water authorities with appointed board members).

“I’m sure I’ll return from the conference with a better understanding of how governments in other countries tackle problems of regional development,” Mr Byrnes said. “Basically, it’s not an ‘academic’ conference, but a meeting of people – many of them very eminent – who deal with these problems on a practical, day-to-day basis.”

Posted by Jim Scanlan at June 26, 2006 04:18 PM