In February 2016, Australia's universities launched a groundbreaking initiative to prevent and address sexual assault and harassment across the sector.
Respect. Now. Always. highlights the determination of Australia’s universities to ensure that our universities are places of safety and respect.
It builds on work done by individual universities in Australia over many years to develop policies, reporting procedures and support services.
The campaign aims to:
For more information about the Respect. Now. Always. initiative, including information about the National university student survey and subsequent action plan, please visit the Universities Australia site.
As a part of the initiative, several resources have been created to aid universities in fostering a respectful and safe environment for staff and candidates. This includes specific resources around supervision of higher degree by research candidates.
In 2018, Universities Australia (UA) has also released the Principles for Respectful Supervisory Relationships which were developed jointly by UA, Australian Council for Graduate Research (ACGR), National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) and Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA).
The Principles make it clear that on the basis of the power imbalance that exists between supervisors and candidates, any sexual or romantic relationship that develops raises questions about capacity for consent and academic integrity and is therefore never appropriate. They also emphasise that a safe and supportive research training environment for all must be built on a culture of mutual respect and trust.
The Principles can be found here.
The Australian Council of Graduate Research Inc has created a suite of videos that tackle a range of specific scenarios, including:
These videos, as well as an instruction manual, can be downloaded here and can be used to facilitate further training and discussion on these issues.