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Authoritarian And Challenging Environments Research Group
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About

Researchers examining authoritarian and complex environments face increasing physical and ethical challenges when doing their work. By its very nature, the field of politics examines issues that are often sensitive or even threatening to some elites and powerful societal groups. In a wide range of contexts, researchers have faced growing political constraints including access to approvals, visas, and important information, and even the threat of detention or even violence, just for doing their work. This group seeks to support these researchers, and to facilitate methodological innovation that ensures the strength, integrity and viability of future research on authoritarian and challenging environments.

In addition to running an annual workshop for academics of all stages, as well as online fieldwork skills sessions for early PhD students, we can also assist with the following:

* Fieldwork guide (please see the resources section for the most recent edition of our fieldwork guide)

* One-on-one expert advice Specific expert advice for those seeking advice on fieldwork or other issues related to our research. Please contact us directly - we have a list of experts who are happy to advise)

* Ethics advice We can help provide advice on designing complex ethics applications or responding to committee feedback. Please contact us

* Crisis support Help when things go wrong. If you or your colleague has been wrongly detained, we have experienced members who can provide advice and support on designing and running campaigns, navigating university and government pressures and supporting one another

Banner image credit: Dalton Abraham

  • Support the development and sharing of innovative methodological techniques to facilitate first-class research
  • Provide a platform of discussion for scholars actively researching challenging environments
  • Support and train PhD and ECR scholars to undertake safe in-country fieldwork in authoritarian, weak and conflict-affected contexts
  • Support Australian political science researchers to design projects on and in authoritarian and conflict-affected contexts that satisfy the obligations detailed under the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research

As a group, we host a range of activities. This includes:

  • Our annual workshop, normally held mid-year at an Australian university - please join our mailing list to receive the call for applications
  • Online skills workshops

Below is the call for applications for our most recent workshop. This space will be updated in 2027 when the next workshop is anounced

Call for Participants: 2026 workshop | June 1-2 | University of Melbourne

Conveners: A/Prof Jasmine Westendorf and Dr Dara Conduit

Collecting high quality data on authoritarian and challenging environments is an increasingly difficult and dangerous proposition, at a time when the significance of such work has never been so great. This workshop, hosted by the APSA Authoritarian and Challenging Environments Research Group (ACERG) and the University of Melbourne, aims to foster a national conversation on the research crisis in order to support safer field research and seed methodological innovation.

The two-day workshop, which will take place from 1-2 June 2026 at the University of Melbourne, will include expert sessions on fieldwork, discussions about the intersectional risks of research, working with local partners, dealing with failure and other key aspects of doing research in challenging environments. Please find the CfP attached.

We invite applications from scholars across all levels in Australia who work on authoritarian or challenging environments, and who are interested in contributing to the national conversation on the research crisis.

As spaces are limited, please complete the expression of interest form here by April 30th 2026, including a brief explanation of how your work is relevant to the workshop. Travel funding will be made available to a limited number of interstate applicants, and will give priority to ECRs and PhD candidates in its allocation.

Participants must be APSA members, although they may join after receiving their notification of acceptance. Please share this CfP among your networks.