Papers on illegal fishing, maternity leave and global warming have been awarded best paper prizes at the inaugural Faculty of Business, Economics and Law Research Conference.

Dr Rachel Baird from the TC Beirne School of Law received the Best Paper Award in the Early Career Researcher category while UQ Business School’s Sally Russell and the School of Economics’ Leonora Risse shared the honours in the PhD Candidate category.

Dr Baird’s paper, entitled Australia’s Response to Illegal Foreign Fishing: A Case of Winning the Battle but Losing the Law?, examined one aspect of the Federal Government’s legislative and policy response to sustained illegal fishing activity – the regime for the automatic forfeiture of vessels, catch and gear.

Ms Risse’s paper, Which Workers Have Access to Maternity Leave in the Australian Labour Force, investigated the availability of paid maternity leave in the Australian labour force and discussed prospective entitlements in an increasingly decentralised industrial environment.

Ms Russell’s paper was a step towards understanding the emotional response to environmental issues.

Feeling the Heat of Global Warming: Exploring Individual and Organisational Emotional Responses to Environmental Issues found that environmental issues were a significant source of emotional expressions, particularly when participants in the study described environmental issues and proenvironmental behaviours at the individual level.

Faculty Research Director, Professor Neal Ashkanasy, said the winners were chosen from a strong field of applicants.

“All three winning papers were very well written,” he said.

“Each paper approached a practical and important question and attempted to answer it with an emphasis on academic rigour.”

The Faculty of Business, Economics and Law Research Conference was held on September 17 during UQ’s Research Week.

The conference provided an opportunity for Early Career academic staff and PhD candidates in each of the Faculty's schools to meet and showcase their research projects.

Keynote speakers included UQ Federation Fellows Professor Hugh Possingham and Professor John Quiggin.