Get Involved
Partnerships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are crucial to the Murru Minya project. If your community is interested in learning more about the project, meeting the team and partnering up, please contact us.
Community Survey
Are you an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community? Have you been asked to conduct research in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health. Help us understand your experiences with research by completing our survey
To complete our survey online
Click here.
Community Workshops
Getting together with mob to have a yarn and feed is one of the best things about research with mob. Details for community workshops will be listed below soon.
Upcoming Events
Lowitja Institute’s 3rd International Indigenous Health and Wellbeing Conference is coming up in June on the tropical lands of the Gimuy-walubarra Yidinji and Yirrganydji peoples in Cairns, Queensland, Australia. It will be the Lowitja Institute’s first conference as a community-controlled organisation, supporting Indigenous-led research for and by our peoples. The three-day gathering a space for sharing innovative ideas and transformational research grounded in our ways of knowing, being and doing. This year’s themes are TRUTH, RIGHTS, and RESPONSE. Click here for Lowitja conference website
Ethics
All Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research needs to be governed and led by Aboriginal voices and leadership; this means we also need to have the proper ethical process to protect our mob.
Murru Minya acknowledges the need for all research impacting the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to hold appropriate ethical approvals and appropriate oversight. Our way of showing our commitment and ensuring that this is adhered to is by listing all Ethics Bodies contacts and approvals. Murru Minya will first seek approval from our state body, the Aboriginal Health & Medical Research Council (AH&MRC NSW) and the University of Newcastle to begin this project. We will then begin seeking and completing national, state and territory-based ethical approvals as community partnerships are confirmed.
This research will be conducted per The Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council (AH&MRC) Ethical Guidelines: Key Principles 2020; NHMRC Road Map II: A Strategic Framework for Improving the Health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People through Research; Values and Ethics: Guidelines for Ethical Conduct in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Research; and Keeping research on track: A guide for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples about health research ethics.
The investigators will implement a dissemination plan that will include key communication strategies. Authorship requirements and publication standards will align with the NHMRC Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors Guidelines. The practical recommendations derived in this study will be published, open access, in a peer-reviewed national journal. Once published, this will be circulated through our mailing list, community partners, and to peak Aboriginal and research bodies. The recommendations will be made freely available to all interested parties to appropriately distribute.
In addition, the recommendations will be provided back to the community’s face-to-face or via webinar presentations as requested by the community. Conference presentations will also be utilised to disseminate the recommendations. You can also find our manuscripts and critical findings in the publications tab of this website.
Governance
Oversight of the research will be provided by an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research Governance Committee made up of our Aboriginal Leadership Group, the National Health and Leadership Forum (NHLF) and key stakeholders. The day-to-day management of the project will be provided by our research team based at The University of Newcastle.
Our community partners can also nominate appropriate community members or stakeholders to be involved in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research Governance Committee.
This research has been granted ethics approval by AH&MRC (1924/22), AIATSIS (E0323-20220414) and UoN HREC (H-2022-0211)
Should you have concerns about your rights as a participant in this research or you have a complaint about the manner in which the research is conducted, it may be given to Michelle Kennedy (researcher), or the chairperson of the below ethics committees
AH&MRC
The Chairperson,
AH&MRC Ethics Committee,
P.O. Box 193,
Matraville NSW 2036
Ph: 02) 9212 4777
Email: ethics@ahmrc.org.au
AIATSIS
Research Ethics Committee,
GPO Box 553,
Canberra ACT 2601
Ph: 02) 6246 1111
Email: ethics@aiatsis.gov.au
University of Newcastle
Research Integrity Unit,
University Dr,
Callaghan NSW 2308
Ph: 02) 4921 7894
Email: human-ethics@newcastle.edu.au