Research Bites is your research news digest which aims to capture the diverse research happening in our faculty, collated from various media outlets. In this edition…
Professor Zahid Islam delighted to share his new paper, with Dr Gea Rahman (PhD) as the lead author, titled “A Semi-Supervised Domain Adaptation Framework Using Dynamic Distribution Alignment and Manifold Regularisation”. The paper has been published in IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence.
The full source code is publicly available on GitHub.
The paper proposes a new framework called SDM that addresses the challenge of domain adaptation. The method progressively adapts a model trained on the source domain so that it becomes useful for the target domain.
Prof Julian Parker-McLeod (Head of School) has had his latest paper published this week, Moving towards a professional police workforce: a scoping review of reflective, experiential and authentic learning in initial education, Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, Volume 20, 2026, paag006, https://doi.org/10.1093/police/paag006. It looks at how reflective practice and mixed pedagogical approach can support professionalisation across all initial entry routes into policing.
As part of the University of Canterbury’s Thought Leadership Series, they proudly hosted three internationally renowned researchers on Thursday for a compelling conversation on workplace diversity and meritocracy, bringing global expertise to Ōtautahi Christchurch. This included Assoc Prof Cliff Lewis | School of Business | who is currently visiting UC as Erskine Fellows, part of the University of Canterbury’s programme that brings leading international academics to campus to teach, collaborate and contribute to public discussion. Read more of Cliff’s insights here.
Prof Tim Anderson (Director, Engineering) recently published his work on Pumped Hydro Energy Storage (PHES). It was a privilege for his research team to contribute to this study for Nepal, where the benefits to the country’s energy system are clear. Prof Anderson was also very grateful to have worked alongside colleagues from the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Laboratory: Sunil Prasad Lohani, PhD; Geeta Bhatta; Sharad Chandra Mainali; Krishna Prasad Dulal; and Prabin Dhakal.
Full article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544226006389?dgcid=coauthor
In a recent publication, Assoc Prof Abbey Dwivedi | School of Business | and his collaborators recently mapped recurring manuscript weaknesses across six areas (e.g., contribution, theory, methods, implications, presentation, and fatal flaws) and showed how issues that are tolerated early can become non-negotiable dealbreakers later if not addressed convincingly. The key message of their article: revision success depends not just on fixing problems, but on understanding when they become decisive. Read more here.
Recently, some of the School of Business team have combined with colleagues and a team from Charles Darwin University to develop a series of labour market insights to identify challenges facing the Northern Territory. In this Northern Territory Insights: Gender equity and diversity in focus, Paper 4, Assoc Prof Clifford Lewis and Suzanne McLaren explore LGBTQ+ Experiences in the Northern Territory.
This recent paper by Head of our Business School, Professor Jac Birt and team outlines a comprehensive methodology for teaching and sharing complex accounting concepts in order to improve the preparation of consolidated financial statements. Access the article now: Schönfeldt, N., P. Hancock, and J. Birt. 2025. “Threshold Concepts in the Preparation of Consolidated Financial Statements.” Accounting & Finance 1–14. https://doi-org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/10.1111/acfi.70163.
Congratulations to Dr Jamie Ferrill | Senior Lecturer in AGSPS |, and her research team including Associate Professor Anton Moiseienko (ANU), Professor Louis de Koker (La Trobe), Professor Saskia Hufnagel (USyd), Professor Colin King (USyd), Associate Professor Doron Goldbarsht (Macquarie), Dr Milind Tiwari (CSU) for securing one of the research funding grants allocated by the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC).
AIC said this about the project: “One of the winning projects, by Charles Sturt University, aims to understand money laundering tactics used by criminals in the illicit tobacco market. Money laundering funds and supports serious and organised crime across Australia, not just illicit tobacco.” Read more about it here.
Jamie and her team will be addressing a critical gap in understanding how transnational, serious and organised crime (TSOC) networks systematically exploit Australia’s trade infrastructure for both the illicit tobacco trade and trade-based money laundering (TBML) in their 18-month research project.
Dr Lucia Wuersch, Dr Felicity Small, and Assoc Prof Alain Neher share their insights into stakeholder engagement within a pollinator garden project at a CSU Bathurst Campus, initiated by the School of Business, and explores its contributions to community capitals and environmental sustainability. Their article, “Building community capitals through stakeholder engagement in a pollinator garden of a regional Australian university: A Business School initiative” is open access and can be enjoyed now.
Dr Jamie Ferrill | Senior Lecturer in AGSPS | and her co-editors are pleased to open 2026 by announcing the publication of a new edited collection, a product of the Financial Integrity Hub, Combating Financial Crime, which examines the intended and unintended consequences of combating financial crime.
As AML/CTF regimes continue to expand globally, this collection interrogates the delicate balance between security imperatives, individual rights, and the integrity of financial systems. While designed to protect societies and economies, financial crime controls can also erode privacy, constrain legitimate activity, and disproportionately affect vulnerable communities.
Drawing on comparative analysis and real-world case studies, the book explores:
* Ethical and legal tensions arising from expanded surveillance
* The impact of AML/CTF frameworks on charities, non-profits, and financial inclusion
* De-banking, unexplained wealth orders, and risk-based regulation
* The growing role of technology, including privacy-preserving analytics and CBDCs
* The intersection of financial crime, environmental harm, and global inequality
Dr Peter Adjei-Bamfo | Lecturer in the School of Business | is thrilled to share that his co-authored article, “eGovernment Adoption in Ghana: Structural Conditions and Employee Affective Orientation,” has been published in Public Administration Review (PAR) and is available in open access.
This work, co-authored with Sandy Zook, Thema Monroe-White, PhD and Prof. Justice Bawole, contributes to their long-running digital nonprofit mapping project in Ghana.
Their current output draws on a nascent digital nonprofit registration and permit renewal project in Ghana as a case study and offers early-stage insights into digital innovation adoption, particularly within resource constrained public sector environments.
Dr Joyce Vromen | Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology | recently published on shame and psychosis recovery | “Shame as a barrier to recovery after psychosis: a lived-experience psychologist’s perspective” | Journal Psychosis.
It’s a short and straightforward piece, but an important one for Joyce. The article brings together three perspectives that are still too often kept separate in mental health work:
- lived experience
- clinical practice
- research
Integrating these lenses matters because recovery, identity, and care decisions are lived at their intersection
Associate Professor Kristy Campion | AGSPS | along with her colleague Dr Kiriloi M. Ingram share their recently published paper “Of Freemen and Strawmen: understanding antigovernment ideologies in Australia through international knowledge contexts.” Australian Journal of Political Science.
In the article Kristy and Kiriloi develop insight into the general ideological contours of anti-government beliefs in Australia. It achieves this through a discourse analysis of international knowledge contexts, which resulted in the 3I Framework, organising the core ideological categories of Illegitimacy, Individualism, and Immunity.
