Five research papers from Australasia impacting policy right now

The Australian government's Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, in their First Nation's Clean Energy Strategy, has outlined a "sustainable clean energy future for all Australians, with Country and Culture at the heart."

In their strategy, developed "in collaboration with First Nations people and organisations," the report states: "Australia is undergoing a clean energy transformation, with a target to reach 82% renewable electricity generation by 2030. This will require significant investment in new transmission and clean energy infrastructure."

The report continues: "First Nations peoples have a significant stake in clean energy development. They are also among the most energy insecure people in the world, with many households experiencing high rates of unplanned disconnections. The clean energy transformation presents a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to positively shift the lives of First Nations peoples in Australia."

The open access article "Connected: rooftop solar, prepay and reducing energy insecurity in remote Australia" from the journal Australian Geographer is cited as a contribution to this policy paper.

Like the strategy report in which it's cited, the article is a collaborative one, utilizing both university-based researchers led by Bradley Riley of the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, ANU, Canberra, Australia, and members of the First Nations community, Serena Morton Nabanunga (SMN) and Norman Frank Jupurrurla (NFJ), both "tenants of House 4, Village Camp, Tennant Creek (Jurnkkurakurr) in Australia’s remote Northern Territory (NT)."

The researchers use case studies to get to the bottom of why more First Nations households don't have solar panels installed on their rooftops.

The paper points out: "Australia is a world leader in per-capita deployment of rooftop solar photovoltaics (PV) with more than three million households realising benefits including reduced energy bills and improved energy security ... these benefits are unevenly distributed."

The paper continues: "Research shows First Nations residents of public housing in remote Australia using prepay metering experience frequent ‘self-disconnection’ from energy services, a known indicator of energy insecurity."

The authors explain: "Upfront capital costs and an absence of local regulations codifying the ability to connect solar PV have long locked out these households from realising benefits of energy transition in regions host to world class renewable energy generation potential."

The authors recommend that "Policy responses should focus on reducing barriers to realising the benefits of rooftop PV for priority communities, including First Nations families living in public housing using prepay."

According to Altmetric, this open access article is "in the top 5% of all research outputs scored." Along with being cited in the policy document, it has been featured in six media outlets including The Conversation and COSMOS.

In the World Health Organization report "Walking and cycling: latest evidence to support policy-making and practice," the authors point out that the need to promote cycling and other exercise is deadly serious: "Walking and cycling can reduce physical inactivity, responsible for approximately one million deaths per year in the WHO European Region."

The authors of the report continue: "Walking and cycling can also help reduce air pollution, which alone claims more than half a million deaths every year in the Region, as well as emissions of greenhouse gases, thereby significantly contributing to decarbonizing transport."

The policy paper's intention is to present "a comprehensive case for why and how to promote walking and cycling, based on the latest evidence from scientific research and planning practice."

One of the research papers they use to strengthen their argument is "Cycling behaviour in 17 countries across 6 continents: levels of cycling, who cycles, for what purpose, and how far?"

This open access paper from the journal Transport Reviews does just what the title says – using "a combination of city, regional, and national travel surveys from 17 countries across the six continents, ranging from years 2009 through 2019," it analyzes "cycling behaviour including level of cycling, trip purpose and distance, and user demographics, at the city-level for 35 major cities (>1 million population) and in urbanised areas nationwide for 11 countries."

The authors recommend that "To achieve representation across different age and gender groups, making neighbourhoods cycling friendly and developing safer routes to school, should be equally high on the agenda as cycling corridors that often cater to commuting traffic."

This open access paper was a collaboration of 14 researchers, including seven from the U.K., two from the U.S., and one each from Australia, Japan, Finland, Switzerland, and India.

Along with the WHO report, it was also cited by two Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reports, "Cities for All Ages", and "Shaping Post-Covid Mobility in Cities."

The research was also cited in the report "Using Behavioural Science to Design and Implement Active Travel Infrastructure: A Narrative Review of Evidence" from The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI); and the "National Health and Climate Strategy" from the Australian Government Department of Health, Disability, and Ageing.

In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric, this paper has also received 174 citations and 25 media mentions. It has had almost 40,000 views since its publication in May 2021.

Dr. Katharine Kemp is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law & Justice, UNSW Sydney, whose research focuses on competition, consumer protection, and data privacy regulation; she is frequently sought out to consult with industry, regulators, and policymakers.

In her open access paper "Concealed data practices and competition law: why privacy matters," published in the European Competition Journal, she aims to define and provide examples of data practices she describes as raising "issues for consumer protection and privacy regulation," which "cause objective detriment to consumers and undermine the competitive process on privacy quality and beyond."

Kemp writes: "firms often understate and obscure their actual data practices," creating "objective costs and detriments for consumers, making them more susceptible to criminal activity, discrimination, exclusion, manipulation and humiliation."

Kemp continues: "Aside from consumer protection and privacy regulatory responses, these practices should be of critical concern to competition authorities given their role in chilling privacy competition; preserving substantial market power by means other than superior efficiency; and deepening information asymmetries and imbalances in bargaining power."

Some of the information that could be gathered that may surprise you includes: "detection of the onset of diseases, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, from consumers’ 'tremors when using a mouse, repeat queries and average scrolling velocity'"; being identified and put on a list if you "suffer from depression, impotence, sexually transmitted diseases, Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, (or are a) victim(s) of sexual assault"; or when seemingly innocuous tracking of your online behavior is combined with "aggregation of that information with other data (purchased and collected from other suppliers and data aggregators), including age, gender, occupation, social media activity, purchasing history, details of children and spouses and other more sensitive information."

Kemp's research has been utilized in four policy documents, including "The intersection between competition and data privacy" and "Dark commercial patterns," published by the OECD; "Policies and Tools for Improving Digital Economy and Competition in Digital Markets: Current Issues," published by Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC); and "Through the Chat Window and Into the Real World: Preparing for AI Agents," published by the Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET).

Her paper, in the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric, has received 45 citations, and been mentioned in 24 news outlets including The Conversation.