Summer and Winter Research Programs

The UQ Poche Centre facilitates a range of research opportunities for undergraduate, honours and masters by coursework students through the Summer and Winter Research Programs each year.

These programs provide you with an opportunity to gain research experience working alongside some of the university’s leading academics and researchers. All Research scholars are eligible to apply for a scholarship for the duration of their research.

Broad requirements for the UQ Poche Centre Research Scholarships are:

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students are especially encouraged to apply
Students must be currently enrolled at UQ at the time of application. Students can be in their first year of study
Students should have a high level of academic achievement (GPA above 4.0)

Scholars are expected to work a minimum of 20 hours per week for at least four weeks. Please note that some positions require scholars to work on a full-time basis (up to 36 hours per week), and the expected workload is set by each supervisor. The scholar and the supervisor are able to negotiate the duration of the project and the workload requirements.

Further information for applicants is available on the UQ Student Employability Centre website. For a chat about project opportunities at the UQ Poche Centre please email poche.research@uq.edu.au.

Summer Research Programs

Birthing in Our Community (BiOC) – Healthy Mums & Bubs

Supervisors: A/Prof Judith Dean & Dr Penny Haora

Duration: 6 weeks

Birthing in Our Community (BiOC) is an Indigenous-led maternity care program designed and implemented in Brisbane from 2013. An initial evaluation of BiOC’s outcomes, published in the Lancet Global Health (2021), showed a significant reduction in preterm births in the region of between 43% and 50%, improvement in healthy weight babies, increased antenatal visits and an increase in exclusive breastfeeding at hospital discharge.

The Poche Centre has partnered with The Institute for Urban Indigenous Health (IUIH), and together we will be implementing the next phase of evaluating BiOC. The evaluation will assess clinical and wellbeing outcomes; as well as program acceptability, scalability, sustainability, feasibility and cost effectiveness. Our goal is to build the evidence base to support adaptation and implementation of BiOC programs in other urban Indigenous communities while also contributing to policy, systems, and practice changes in support of the Best Start to Life for First Nations mums and families.

This summer project will be aligned with supporting development of the qualitative methods and understanding other aspects of the program such as mum’s experiences.. The successful applicant will work closely with the Poche research team and there may be opportunity to visit with our partners at IUIH.

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The health of Indigenous people in urban areas of Australia

Supervisor: Dr Stuart Leske

Duration: 6 weeks

Background: Indigenous Peoples are increasingly residing in urban areas of Australia. This requires optimising their access to health services in these areas and verifying that research funding gives adequate attention to research projects occurring with Indigenous people in urban areas.

Aim: The aim of this program of research is to conduct multiple reviews to examine a) Indigenous peoples’ access to health services in urban areas and b) the funding awarded to research projects in urban areas by competitive funding schemes for medical research.

Hypotheses: We hypothesise that there are multiple barriers to accessing health services in urban areas, and that research funding may prioritise funding applications for research projects occurring in remote communities.

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Systematic Review on the use of Health System Data in First Nations’ Research

Supervisor: Prof Roxanne Bainbridge / Erika Langham

The summer project will contribute to the systematic review through the screening of academic papers, extraction of findings from those papers, critical analysis, and reporting.

The systematic review builds on a body of work from the Murra Minya project. The Murra Minya project is a national project, led by Professor Michelle Kennedy at the University of Newcastle, looking at how health research has been conducted with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

This project examines how health system data (administrative data and patient records) has been utilised in First Nations research in Australia.

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Factors Associated with Mental Wellbeing in First Nations Adolescents Enrolled in a Community Co-Designed Sleep Intervention

Supervisor: Dr Dan Sullivan

Adolescence is a key period for physical, social, and emotional development. Mental health and wellbeing in this critical time will be moderated by a range of biological, psychological, social, cultural, and spiritual factors. This project aims to describe factors associated with good mental health outcomes in a sample of First Nations adolescents who participated in the pilot of a community co-designed and delivered sleep programme. Factors associated with good mental health will be explored from a quantitative approach, which may include parametric and non-parametric null hypothesis testing, calculation of effect sizes, modelling of interactions and multiple regression.

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