These top-up Scholarships will honour Professor Anna Stewart, a highly respected and leading researcher and former Head of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University.
The establishment of this Scholarship will serve to support First Nation candidates as they undertake a PhD at Griffith University.
Anna Stewart was an academic at Griffith University for almost 30 years. She was a member of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice. She served two terms as Head of the School, and was for a time Deputy Faculty Dean, and later the Director of the Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance. She also served on Queensland’s Child Death Review Committee, the Crime Research Reference Committee of the Queensland Government Statistician’s Office, and the ABS National Crime Statistics Advisory Group. From 2012 until 2015 Anna was co-editor of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology. She published some 108 books, chapters, articles and reports, and earned nearly $8 million in research funding during her career.
Anna’s research passion was using government administrative data to understand complex social disadvantage and how it could be better addressed. She was committed to improving service delivery systems to better target preventive social interventions, especially in the areas of child safety, family and domestic violence, and mental health.
Throughout her career Anna mentored and developed a team of junior colleagues and collaborators. Anna had a deep commitment to supporting post graduate students. She supervised and graduated 17 PhD students and 28 Honours and Masters students.
Anna sadly passed away in April 2021. This scholarship has been established in her memory by her husband of 24 years, Gerard Palk.
To be eligible to be considered for the top up scholarship the applicant must
- be an Australian Citizen
- be planning to undertake a Higher Degree Research (HDR) program at Griffith University.
- be of Aboriginal Australian or Torres Strait Islander descent (who identify themselves as such, and are accepted by the Community with which they are associated as an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander).
- be awarded an Australian Government RTP Stipend Scholarship, Griffith University Postgraduate Research Scholarship, Griffith University Indigenous Australian Postgraduate Research Scholarship (or equivalent) offered from 2025 onwards.
The scholarship recipient will receive a top up scholarship of $10,000 per annum, for a maximum period of three years.
To be eligible to receive the top up scholarship you must also apply for and be awarded an Australian Government RTP Stipend Scholarship, Griffith University Postgraduate Research Scholarship, or Griffith University Indigenous Australian Postgraduate Research Scholarship (or equivalent). The 2025 Griffith University Indigenous Australian Postgraduate Research Scholarship has an annual stipend of $53,976 (indexed) for a period of up to three and a half years of full-time study.
New applicants (not currently enrolled in a Higher Degree Research program at Griffith University) must follow the process for submitting an online application for a research program, which also includes a section for scholarship application. To be considered for this scholarship please state in the scholarship section that you are applying for The Professor Anna Stewart Scholarship Program supporting First Nation PhD Students.
Candidates already enrolled in a Higher Degree Research program at Griffith may apply by emailing hdr-scholarship@griffith.edu.au. The email should include a brief statement addressing the eligibility and selection criteria.
Applications are closed for 2025.
Applicants are asked to note that the donor, or a nominee of the donor, will receive details of the shortlisted applications
Applications will be reviewed against the framework for selection of scholarship awardees as detailed in section 3 of the Higher Degree Research Procedure and takes into consideration:
- Academic merit, with emphasis on the results attained in the qualification with the substantial research component but also taking into account the grades of any other eligible qualification, or evidenced equivalence of research excellence capability as applicable
- The international standing of the institution at which the qualification with the substantial research component was completed
- The compatibility/fit between the applicant, research environment, and the supervision team
- The compatibility/fit of the proposed research with university/academic group research priorities
- Research background, including:
- the quality of the eligible research outputs included as evidence in an application, as well as the applicant's contribution to these outputs
- the level and duration of sustained research experience and evidence of how the research activity undertaken bears upon and enhances the applicant's research capacity, with regard to the proposed research