ProfessorRuth Phillips

Project Opportunities

Title: Social Work and Social Policy

Summary of opportunity:

Before commencing her PhD at the University of New South Wales, Ruth was the principal policy officer in the Western Australia Department for Community Services (now Department for Community Development).

Current

• From Solidarity to Social Protection: Localised Collective Community Action in Indonesia Calling the State to Account
• Gender inequality in sport in Pakistan: An exploration of the experiences of elite female athletes in Pakistan
• Governing adolescent girls' sexuality in Indonesia through anti-sexual violence activism and policy reforms
• Enhancing Cambodian Higher Education through the Higher Education Improvement Project: An Interrogation of Its Problem Representations
• Exploring the lived experiences of ethnically marginalised men of colour who use family violence in Australia

Opportunity synopsis:

Research interests

Social structures, inequalities and social justice

• Social change
• Postcolonial feminist theory
• Feminism
• Global Social Policy

Social work and social policy

• Social policy
• Third sector research

----------Current Research Projects----------

2026 - 2027 Ethics & AI in Research and Writing

2026- 2027 Postcolonial Analysis of Leadership of ISTR (International Sociaty for Third Sector Research - 'From Colonial to Pluriversal: Leadership Narratives and the Evolution of ISTR as a Global Research Organization' collaboration with Prof. Mario Aquino Alves (Lead CI)s Drawing on archival interviews with former ISTR presidents, long-term members and administrators from the ISTR Oral History Project, as well as the author’s recollections as former presidents, this presentation explores a values and identity evolution of the organization. Based on a postcolonial theoretical analysis (Bhabha, 1994; Spivak 2007, 2008; de Sousa Santos, 2016; Morton, 2018) the study has emerged with three key institutional periods and key themes of organizational development.   Ro  

2026 - 2027 Anchor Paper for - Global Discourse Special Issue Civil Society in crisis? Extent, experiences, causes and consequences 

2025-2027- Emancipatory Practice with Older People in Australia - Theory, Policy and Pracice - book contract - edited book for Routledge UK.

Earlier projects:

• 2023-2025 - Dignity by Design - The Dignity by Design: Survivor-led System Redesign Research (Dignity by Design) would not be possible without the resilience, dedication and commitment of victim-survivors who have generously shared their expertise, experiences and hopes for the future. Lead CI  Prof Susan Heward-Belle - Ruth Phillips CI Policy analysis.
• 2021 - 2023 CI on Project, WestPac Safer Children, Safer Communities Research Grants – with CIs Susan Heward-Belle & Susan Goodwin
• 2019 – 2020 Lead researcher (CI): With Susan Heward-Belle, Faculty Research Support Scheme (FRSS) Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences grant for ‘Domestic Security’: reframing DV policy in the National Plan’
•  2017 – 2018 Project:  Lead researcher with co-researchers Dr Susan Heward- Belle & Prof. Susan Goodwin,‘Messages from the Frontline: Australian domestic violence workers' policy advice for the implementation of national domestic violence policy’.
• 2016 – 2017 Project:  Co-researcher with Funaki Shinsuke from Fukui Prefecture University, Fukui Japan (lead researcher) ‘A study on the current conditions of social, economic and political integration of the Japanese community in Australia’.

• 2012 - 2013 Project: “Understanding Gender Equality within Women’s NGOs - a Global Study.” International web-based survey of 283 (responses) women’s NGOs on how gender equality is understood and the role of feminist theory.’ 
• Microfinance as a push factor for Human Trafficking in Cambodia project (2017-2018)