News from the College of Business, Government & Law
We acknowledge the traditional owners, both past and present, of the various locations Flinders University operates on, and recognise their continued relationship and responsibility to these lands and waters. We recognise that Flinders was established on the lands of the Kaurna nation, with the main Flinders campus located near Warriparinga
Welcome to the October edition of the College newsletter for 2025.
Our lead story and photo this month address our amazing Law students, who have secured back-to-back wins in the Websters Intervarsity Competition for SA law schools. Not only have they won both competitions. In both years, the Grand Final have come down to a head-to-head competition between two Flinders teams! Congratulations to the 2025 winning team of Hannah Esmaeli and Isabella Trigwell, and the runners up, Mojtaba Shafaie and Chetan Changalasetty!
Other stories for October include an update on our Event Management and Tourism course (which already is our third largest Business major in the College based on first preferences for 2026), a suite of new research projects from our climate change and water economics experts, and the announcement that a CSI ARC Linkage Project on food security, led by Svetlana Bogomolova, has reached the finals in the Engagement Australia 2025 Excellence Awards. All stories of achievement through teamwork!
Happy reading!
Professor Michael Gilding
Vice-President and Executive Dean
Feature Story
Websters Intervarsity Competition | Flinders Law
Our law students have once again proven their excellence, taking out the 2025 Websters Intervarsity Grand Final and securing back-to-back wins against South Australia’s top law schools. These achievements highlight the college's standing as a leading law school, preparing graduates to thrive in the legal profession and beyond.
Tales from BGL
Tales from inside BGL: Event Management & Tourism
It’s been a big year for Event Management and Tourism here at Flinders! From hosting an escape room at Open Days to launching industry partnerships, international collaborations, and hands-on learning experiences, the discipline has embraced its new home in the College of Business, Government and Law with energy and momentum.
October Spotlights
HDR Spotlight:
Hamid Ullah Azizi
From interviewing poppy farmers in Afghanistan to perfecting his chicken curry recipe, Hamid’s PhD journey has been full of challenges, growth, and surprising twists.
Researcher Spotlight:
Nick Bordeleau
Dr. Nick Bordeleau’s journey from Canada to Flinders is anything but ordinary. A political scientist driven by big questions about democracy, Nick is passionate about research, balance of quantity and quality, and of course, cheering on the Crows.
Read More >
Research
Top Research Publications
Top 10%/ A*/A/Q1
*Based on notification emailed to CBGL.research@flinders.edu.au from 25 August - 23 September 2025. Current BGL staff in bold.
Azizi, H., Gundur, R. V. (2025). Collecting Data in Forbidden Places: Reflections on Gaining Access, Mitigating Risks, and Managing Fieldworkers in Geopolitically Sensitive and Precarious Situations. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 24, Article 16094069251345502. (Scimago: Top 10% (2.83%) in Education)
Hawkes, M., Paton, A., Ibrahim, N. (2025). Meeting the training needs of a child-protection workforce: perspectives on professional certificates in understanding, assessing, and responding to childhood trauma. Social Work Education, 44(3), 431-451. (Scimago: Q1 (17.07%) in Social Sciences (miscellaneous))
Powell, A., Westberg, K., Stavros, C., Newton, F. (2025). Beyond the game: alcohol brand experiences in sport and the potential for harm. Journal of Marketing Management. Advance online publication. (Scimago: Q1 (14.71%) in Strategy and Management)
Wali Ullah, G. M., Bonsu, C. O., Abdullah, M., Dey, S. K. (2025). Customer Concentration and the Readability of 10-K Reports. British Accounting Review, Article 101635. Advance online publication. (Scimago: Q1 (14.94%) in Accounting)
Le, T., Yalcin, E., Bach, T., Hoang, K. (2025). Endogenous Expropriation with Non-strategic Lobbying. SAGE Open, 15(3), 1-10. (Scimago: Q1 (22.99%) in Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous))
New Research Income
Pham, T., Defining the potential for mangrove-based agribusiness transformation in the coastal Mekong Delta Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research ($324,162)
Pham, T., Doerr, V. & Lanyon, K. Development of good-practice guidance for inclusive Naturebased Solutions Australian Government, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade ($42,746)
Zhang, S., Zuo, A., Deng, X. & Lei, Z. Growing sustainable aviation fuel industries in combatting climate crisis: opportunities for Australia and China National Foundation for Australia-China Relations ($230,000)
Visibility of Your Research Awards on Flinders@research
Research Development and Support are in the process of converting your 2024 and 2025 awards into individual Projects on the Research@Flinders webpage. These will be publicly visible and searchable by title, unless the award is Defence-funded, internal, or doesn’t have an associated funding agreement.
We encourage you to take a moment to review your profile. If you’d prefer to make any changes or request that an award, be made confidential, please feel free to reach out to your College RDS staff or email us at research.grants@flinders.edu.au.
Please note this is a pilot and at this stage your college is the only one involved, previous year’s pre-2024 and other colleges will be rolled out over the course of 2025 and 2026.
What's been happening in BGL 🎈
Travelling in a successful direction
Despite launching his travel business at a time when online booking platforms were disrupting the industry, Mark Trim (BBgIntFin ’05) has built a thriving, modern company that blends the convenience of online tools with personalised services tailored to what travellers truly want and need.
CSI Flinders are Finalists in the Engagement Australia 2025 Excellence Awards!
We’re thrilled to share that the Centre for Social Impact Flinders’ ARC Linkage Project has been selected as a finalist in the Engagement Australia 2025 Excellence Awards!
By shifting food relief from unsustainable handouts to a gateway for addressing the root causes of food insecurity, this university–policy–community collaboration offers a scalable model that’s gaining interest both interstate and globally.
Partners:
- Centre for Social Impact, Flinders University
- Anglicare SA
- Foodbank SA & NT
- The Food Centre Inc.
- Department of Human Services SA
- Preventive Health SA
- UniSA Allied Health and Human Performance
- Centre for Health in All Policies Research Translation – Health Translation SA / School of Public Health, University of Adelaide
A huge thank you to our incredible partners for making this work possible!
The winner will be announced on 12 November at the EA Excellence Awards event in Sydney.
What's on 📢
Flinders Criminology is co-hosting a screening of 'Songs Inside', a film that follows 12 women in an Australian prison who, over six months, discover the transformative power of music. Their journey culminates in a performance of their songs with a full symphony orchestra inside the prison.
The documentary is part of a broader campaign to challenge stereotypes about women who are incarcerated and support urgent changes to the system.
Watch the film, be moved, and hear from the filmmakers and the women themselves.
📅 Friday 17 October | 5.00 - 7.00 PM
📍 North 1 Theatre, Bedford Park Campus
🎟️ Free - booking required
Friends and family are welcome.
Flinders University Library invites all CBGL academics and staff to a thought-provoking event exploring the intersection of Open Access and artificial intelligence. As part of Open Access Week 2025, we’ll unpack this year’s theme — Who Owns Our Knowledge? — and examine how AI is reshaping the way research is created, shared, and controlled.
Guided by Library Director Prashant Pandey and MC’d by Associate Library Director Liz Hall, our panel features:
Dr Matthew Stephenson (College of Science & Engineering)
Associate Professor Vera Weisbecker (College of Science & Engineering)
Mr Tom Upitis (Digital Innovation and AI)
Expect engaging discussion, themed morning tea, 3D printed door prizes, and time to connect.
📅 Thursday 23 October, 10–11:30am
📍 Alere North, The Hub Level 2, Bedford Park (or live-stream the event)
🎟️ Free — register now to save your spot
Website Uplift - Your opinion is important to us!
As part of the Web Uplift project, we are enhancing the Flinders website to create a more intuitive and effective platform for staff who support student interactions. Your experience and insights are essential to ensuring these improvements genuinely meet your needs.
We invite you to complete our User Experience Survey to help us understand how staff engage with the website when servicing and interacting with students. The survey takes approximately 10-15 minutes, and your feedback will directly influence the design and functionality of the updated site.
Click here for survey link | Deadline: 15 October 2025
Your input will help us deliver a website that makes your work easier and enhances the student experience.
Reminder from P&C: Bulk leave booking for Academic staff (excluding casuals)
Annual Leave of 20 days (pro rata for part-time) will be automatically booked for Academic staff to take effect from Tuesday, 30 December 2025, as per clause 30.3 of the Enterprise Agreement.
Leave Cancellation Requests
Requests to cancel this leave must be based on extenuating circumstances and aligned with operational needs. Staff should:
- Discuss the request with their supervisor in the first instance.
- Seek approval from the Dean, People & Resources via email, including details of the alternative leave period.
- Once approved, submit the leave cancellation request via Workday, attaching the approved email.
- After supervisor approval, staff book a new period of annual leave via Workday ensuring the leave is taken before 31 December 2026.
Reversal of block-booked annual leave will not be considered for any staff member with an annual leave balance exceeding 294 hours (pro rata for part-time). For further details, please visit the End of Year Closure webpage.
Share Your News!
We know you have stories to share, and we want to hear from you. It could be important milestones coming up, staff achievements, exciting new research, innovative developments, people and culture updates, and more.
The newsletter is complemented by the staff-only blog - College of Business, Government and Law News - which is great for longer form content.
More info including timelines is here.
Important University Dates 📅
We embrace innovative knowledge and practice to tackle the challenges of our time, with a strategic focus on technology, health and social impact.
-Our Mission-
College of Business, Government and Law, Flinders University
