Associate ProfessorAnthony Ware

I am a teaching and research Associate Professor of Humanitarianism and Development.

My research is problem-oriented and impact-focussed. My expertise is around conflict-affected humanitarian-development situations, including analysis of both the conflict and the theory and practice of international responses. I am particularly interested in everyday peace and bottom-up, civil society or community-led peacebuilding/conflict transformation, preventing violent extremism (PVE), conflict analysis, and conflict-sensitivity and do no harm (DNH). Geographically, my fieldwork primarily focussed on Myanmar until recently, particularly Rakhine State and the Rohingya conflict—but more recently I have conducted detailed fieldwork in Bangladesh, Philippines, Indonesia, Kenya and Mozambique. 

My research is strongly practice/policy-oriented, exploring humanitarian-development responses in conflict-affected situations. I am experienced in collecting rich, qualitative field data on complex, conflict-related humanitarian-development problems, and leading data collection in difficult contexts (e.g. DFAT do no travel zones). I usually work in close collaboration, co-designing research with local civil society organisations and/or academic researchers, and frequently co-publishing with them. In the process, I lead multiple concurrent research teams on different projects, collaborate closely with multiple industry partners, engage frequently with local academic researchers, and often brief policy makers and key stakeholders. 

My research impacts (detailed later) include, for example:

• a major peacebuilding program for Myanmar Rohingya after ethnic cleansing;
• new programs for preventing violent extremism in Mindanao, Lombok and Kenya, and;
• a new Do No Harm analysis and project design tool, adopted by a global development-humanitarian NGO plus the Asian Development Bank right across their Fragile and Conflict Affected States portfolio.

I am a Visiting Research Professor at the School of Sustainable Development, Universitas Indonesia (2023-2026, with visits from time to time), and an Adjunct Professor with the Department of Political Science, Mindanao State University, Iligan City, The Philippines.

I was Director (and co-founder) of the Australia Myanmar Institute (AMI) 2014-2017 (https://aummi.edu.au/), and Secretary of the Development Studies Association of Australia (DSAA) 2019-2022 (https://www.developmentstudies.asn.au/).

I was Convenor of Deakin's Development-Humanitarian Research Group (2018-2022). I am an Assistant Editor of Development in Practice journal (https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/cdip20). I have been on faculty at Deakin since 2012, and previously lectured at The University of Melbourne (2011). 

I have published:

• 8 books (2 monographs, 6 edited), including lead author of the highly regarded Myanmar's 'Rohingya' Conflict (Oxford University Press, 2018, with Costas Laoutides) which was selected for the 2019 Irrawaddy Literature Festival in Mandalay, Myanmar
• 2 special issues of journals
• 28 academic journal articles (16x Q1)
• 40 book chapters
• 9 major industry/technical reports

I am a regular reviewer of journal articles and book manuscripts for various publishers.

In 2024 my Field-Weighted Citation Impact factor (SciVal) was 2.70, meaning my publication portfolio has attracted almost three times the citations of the field average. My Field-Weighted (Development Studies FoR 4404) Output in Top 10% Citations of 22.2% is almost double the Australia-wide average (13.2%). I am recognised as a leading academic on peacebuilding, ranked third in Australia 2022-2026 (SciVal citations) in Peacebuilding and State Fragility.

As a public intellectual, I have also given 20 live TV and 13 live radio appearances over the past 15 years, plus authored 13 media articles (e.g. in The Conversation, etc). 

I have supervised 11 PhD candidates to completion, 6 as principal supervisor, 5 as associate supervisor, plus dozens of masters thesis/dissertations, and Honours students in fields ranging from the impact of political transition on minority rights, to evaluation of small NGO programs, to the emergence of humanitarian studies, to middle power influence in Myanmar's peace process, to microfinance, child sponsorship, and cultural heritage.