UQ Summer/Winter Research Program

Project title: 

History of War in 7 Weapons 

Hours of engagement & delivery mode:

For the Winter program, students will be engaged for 4 weeks only.

Hours of engagement must be between 20 – 36 hrs per week.

The project will be offered on-site (St Lucia)

Description:

History of War in 7 Weapons: this project seeks to examine the history of war through the lens of seven different weapons, particularly looking at weapons control, the social impact of war, and how war has changed over time. The project will result in a scholarly book aimed at a wide market.

Expected learning outcomes and deliverables:

Scholars will gain advanced research skills and learn about the process of how a book is created from the inside, and understand the differences between academic and commercial publishing.

Suitable for:

This project is suitable for applicants from politics, international relations, history and law. Candidates should have a strong interest in research in international politics and history.

Primary Supervisor:

Associate Professor Sarah Percy

Further info:

polsis@uq.edu.au

Project title: 

Hours of engagement & delivery mode

Students will be engaged for a four-week period (29 June–24 July 2026), with a workload of 35 hours per week, equivalent to 7 hours per day.

The project will be delivered in a hybrid format.

Description:

This project builds on the supervisor’s long-standing research on the moral purposes underpinning Chinese coercive practices in contemporary international politics. Rather than treating coercion solely as an instrumental response to structural incentives, it adopts an interpretive approach to examine how coercive actions are rendered morally intelligible and legitimate within Chinese political discourse and popular culture. The supervisor’s prior work has explored how coercion is understood and justified within domestic Chinese contexts.

This new project extends that research in a new direction by examining how China explains and presents coercive practices to international audiences. Through analysis of policy documents, official speeches, and media narratives, the project traces how moral logics of coercion are articulated, reproduced, and stabilised in Chinese foreign policy discourse.

Students will contribute to primary source collection, literature review, discourse analysis, and case study development, while developing skills in academic research and analysis.

Chinese language proficiency is not required.

Expected learning outcomes and deliverables:

Supervisor of the project will have the opportunity to produce academic publications arising from the project.

Students will develop skills in data collection and analysis, participate in specific research tasks, and will be expected to produce a written report and deliver an oral presentation at the conclusion of the project.

Suitable for:

This project welcomes applications from advanced undergraduate students (second year and above) with a background in International Relations or Political Science.

Primary Supervisor:

Dr Minran Liu

Further info:

Please contact minran.liu@uq.edu.au for further information