Article of the year! Acclaim for CRADLE’s equity research

Congratulations to past and present CRADLE team members for recent recognition of not one but two equity-focused papers.

Not one but two papers from a CRADLE-led project were recently recognised for outstanding contributions to the field of higher education. The papers, which each give voice to the university experiences of students from equity backgrounds, were outputs of an institutional Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program–funded project:

Negotiating learning at university: Exploring the experiences of students from equity backgrounds

In March, ‘Caught in a loop? Investigating the interplay between time and emotions for university students’ was one of six papers shortlisted for the Teaching in Higher Education Editors’ Choice Award for 2026. The paper focuses on the significant yet under-researched relationship between students’ experiences of time and their emotions during university studies. It was led by Professor Mollie Dollinger (formerly of CRADLE, now Curtin University) and co-authored by CRADLE’s Dr Nicole Crawford, Professor Margaret Bearman and Associate Professor Joanna Tai, alongside project lead Professor Rola Ajjawi (formerly of CRADLE, now University of British Columbia).

Meanwhile, ‘The house of cards: Equity-group students’ experiences of structural inequity in higher education’ was named as one of two winners of the Higher Education Research & Development (HERD) Article of the Year Award at July’s HERDSA 2026 Conference in Singapore. Selected from a competitive field of 142 articles published by HERD in 2025, this paper was recognised for providing ‘significant critical and/or analytical insights to the field of higher education’. The paper was led by Rola and co-authored by Nicole, Margaret, Mollie and Jo, together with Deakin’s Dr Matt Brett. It utilises a ‘house of cards’ metaphor to illustrate how universities reproduce disadvantage through institutional structural barriers that interact with individual students’ lives.

Both of these critically acclaimed papers were produced as part of the Negotiating learning at university project. Taking a qualitative longitudinal approach, this project explored the experiences of 35 undergraduate students from equity and historically under-represented backgrounds as they negotiated life, work and learning. With more publications currently under preparation, stay turned for further insightful outputs from the project.

Congratulations to the project team on their well-deserved accolades!