Research

The word ‘research’ describes a very broad spectrum of activity—from practical to theoretical—but at its core research is about the discovery of new knowledge.

New knowledge enables us to adjust our frame of reference if necessary and determine new directions for thought or action. Although the primary drive to seek new knowledge is curiosity and the instinctive desire to know what, or why, or how, it is also driven by the need for solutions to new problems and new needs—for new ways of understanding and ‘being’ in the world. For research to be of most value it should connect to the most fundamental needs of communities, societies, and nations.

And new knowledge can be acquired by re-contextualising old information. For this re-contextualisation, imagination and thoughtful examination of preconceptions and assumptions are necessary pre-conditions.

Our aim is to help you acquire, through exploration of Australia’s past and present submarine history, new understandings. Those new understandings enable knowledge not just of the past and present, but possibilities for the future. For it is by understanding the past in the present that we come to know what endures and what is transitory, and thus what is possible. It shows us that the future is ‘open’. It empowers we Australians to make our future—whilst ensuring of course we remain free to do so.

As Australian society adjusts and changes, so too will its ideas on what it is that Australians wish to protect – and how.