Major New Indigenous Histories and Futures Centre launched at JCU

The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories and Futures (CIEHF) will be officially launched today at James Cook University’s Nguma-bada Campus, Smithfield.

Centre Director Distinguished Professor Sean Ulm will be joined by community leaders and Elders, partners, and esteemed guests to celebrate this significant milestone.

“Australia’s future depends on learning lessons from the past and applying them to problems that confront our modern world. Yet we know surprisingly little about how tens of thousands of years of Indigenous engagement and management have shaped Australia’s lands and seas,” said Professor Ulm.

The Centre includes world-leading researchers from across the globe with deep expertise encompassing Indigenous knowledges, Indigenous science, archaeology, history, ecology, palaeoecology, mathematics, modelling, remote sensing and genomics.

CIEHF Deputy Director and ARC Laureate Fellow Distinguished Professor Lynette Russell from Monash University, said CIEHF will transform the way the humanities, arts and social science disciplines, and science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines engage with Indigenous knowledges.

“The vast store of Indigenous knowledges, in conjunction with historical, archaeological and palaeoecological records, have rarely been employed to inform land and sea management,” Professor Russell said.

CIEHF Deputy Director and University of Melbourne Professor Michael-Shawn Fletcher, said authentic co-designed research with Indigenous partners is at the heart of the Centre.

“A failure in many approaches to working on Country in the past has been to impose non-Indigenous research agendas. The research framework and program of this new Centre was co-designed with Indigenous partners, to put genuine partnership arrangements in place, across the design, management and delivery of the Centre,” said Professor Fletcher.

Professor Ngiare Brown, JCU’s Chancellor, said that Healthy Country is at the heart of this Centre.

“This is an important investment from JCU, the Australian Research Council, and other partners, healthy country means healthy people, essential for Australia’s future.”

About CIEHF:

CIEHF is a collaboration of over 30 leading organisations, including universities, research institutions, and Indigenous partner organisations. The Centre’s research program is built on authentic co-design with Indigenous partners, ensuring that projects align with the needs and aspirations of the communities they serve. With a focus on training and empowering the next generation of Indigenous researchers, CIEHF aims to influence public policy and land management practices at national and global scales.

By leveraging expertise in areas such as archaeology, palaeoecology, and genomics, alongside traditional Indigenous knowledge, the Centre will deliver high-resolution insights into Australia’s past and future landscapes. Its work will be critical for reshaping how we understand cultural, environmental, and historical changes, contributing to better outcomes for Country and community wellbeing.

For more information about the ARC Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories and Futures, visit: www.ciehf.com