ProfessorPhil Riley

For the past nine years I have been the Chief Investigator and Director of the
annual Principal Health and Wellbeing Surveys in Australia, Ireland, New
Zealand and most recently Finland. The research is focussed on OH&S/ Wellbeing
issues for principals and aspirant leaders, and has recently expanded to
include teachers in the Northern Territory and New Zealand. The research is
underpinned conceptually by the Job Demands and Resources (JD-R) Theory.
However, I have extended JD-R theory, to include the relationships between
school leaders, teachers and students, through combining concepts from
Attachment Theory to JD-R. I am particularly focussed on the cognitive,
behavioural, affective and existential dimensions of leadership.
1. Occupational health, safety and wellbeing of school leaders and teachers
2. Organisational culture
3. The overlap between leadership, leader-member exchange and psychological processes
4. Interpersonal relationships within the classroom and in the staffroom
5. The impact of Attachment Styles on the leadership of teachers and students
6. The "secure base" as a mediator between school leadership and teachers' coping

I strive to allow the benefits of my research findings to flow out into
industry and the community rapidly, by producing detailed annual reports
released into the public domain. The reports have generated significant
discussion among policy makers (substantiated by invitations to brief every
department of education in the country annually since 2014) and the general
public see Media Impact below). My knowledge translation strategy is to
deliver the important findings and new knowledge rapidly, through industry
publications and keynote speeches, while the slower process of producing high
quality academic outputs progresses.

To this end, the strategies I repeatedly use to achieve my research goals are
to:
1. Secure sufficient funding through industry collaboration around significant projects;
2. Find the right research collaborators to conduct the work;
3. Rapidly produce significant research outputs for industry partners and highest quality outputs for the academy; and,
4. Produce high quality academic publications.

These strategies are now the Australian federal government's preferred
research career model. I am therefore extremely well placed in the current
milieu. My track record of identifying and addressing telling research
questions drawn from on-going industry collaborations has created the platform
for a significant international expansion of the work and will help to
position Deakin University at the forefront of this important development.
Pursuing this strategy has brought national and international recognition as
an eminent authority in school principal health and wellbeing, and I provide
intellectual leadership beyond this specific area of research, through
increasing recognition as a public intellectual, evidenced by over 70 keynote
addresses in six countries, and regular contact by journalists for comment on
these and related issues.

To summarise: I am recognised as an international research leader who garners
high levels of engagement from industry partners, and produces research that
creates significant industry impact, participant benefit and academic
recognition.