http://hdl.handle.net/10453/35355 2026-04-06T21:10:03Z http://hdl.handle.net/10453/193850 Title: The creation of academic spin-offs: University-Business Collaboration matters Authors: Davey, T; Martínez-Martínez, SL; Ventura, R; Galán-Muros, V Abstract: In discussions about Entrepreneurial Universities, it is essential to recognize that academics are at its heart and almost certainly the most important protagonists, particularly those who engage in academic spin-off creation (ASOs). However, understanding their entrepreneurial behavior is still limited, as is the connection to other important activities, such as University-Business Collaboration (UBC). Literature suggests that ASOs creation is conditioned by a great number of factors, but prior studies are limited in their approach and do not include the effect of the participation in other collaborative activities with the industry. This gap is addressed by unlocking spin-off creation from a multidisciplinary approach, integrating both psychological and sociological antecedents, as well as considering the influence of UBC in a much-needed international context. With data from a sample of 2,188 academics from 33 European countries, eleven hypotheses are tested using a structural equation model – The UBC-ASOs Model. Results show the relevance of the three UBC dimensions considered (attitude towards UBC, cultural support for UBC and UBC self-efficacy) for ASOS creation, as well as the effect of the cultural aspect in the psychological domain. Motivations are defined as drivers of UBC, while academics’ social capital enhances their cultural support for UBC but does not influence their attitude towards UBC or their UBC self-efficacy. The central role of UBC reveals the importance of re-thinking academic entrepreneurship research from the broader perspective of collaboration, while having valuable policy and managerial implications and providing key insights on how to develop Entrepreneurial Universities. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10453/193730 Title: Does place and connection shape attitudes on policy favouring rural areas? Unpacking the rural-urban divide in Australia Authors: Ashton, L; Gauja, A; Halpin, D; Ratcliff, S Abstract: Recent North American and Western European research reports a distinctive rural vs urban dynamic in political behaviour. In this paper, we test the role of geography in the policy attitudes of Australians to items favouring rural areas. Exploiting data from the Australian Cooperative Election Survey, we examine whether populations differ in their policy preferences. We innovate conceptually by deploying an additional measure–rural connection–to tap the relationship that people have with geographical spaces that extend beyond place of residence. While place taps direct relations with geographical location (by living there), connection taps an indirect relationship, arrived at by having once lived or having friends or relatives who live in a rural place. Our analysis shows that existing findings of the role of place broadly hold in the Australian case, as do our new measure of connection. This adds weight to the development of place- and connection-based arguments for policy attitudes. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10453/193618 Title: The impact of declining rainfall and ocean forcing on morphology and dynamics of an island fresh groundwater lens, South-West Western Australia Authors: Sharifazari, S; McCallum, J; Meredith, K; Johnson, F; Palmer, JG; Turney, CSM; Andersen, MS Abstract: Fresh groundwater lenses are an important natural source of potable water for communities on small oceanic islands but are highly vulnerable to climate variability and long-term trends such as prolonged decadal rainfall decline. This is particularly true of the islands along the coast of Southwest-Western Australia located in the Indian Ocean where substantial rainfall declines are the primary driver of a reduction in the volume of groundwater recharge. On these islands, the impact of these changes is further complicated by seawater mixing associated with sea level fluctuations operating on time scales ranging from hourly to seasonal, interannual, and decadal. The complex interaction between climatic and sea level variability highlights the need for well-constrained density-dependent groundwater models to understand changes to recharge on various timescales to manage groundwater resources. This study focused on Rottnest Island where groundwater age data was combined with water level and salinity measurements to develop a 3D density-dependent groundwater model. The steady state modelling of the fresh groundwater lens suggests a recharge rate of −41 % of the long-term historic annual rainfall, with the winter rainfall important for lens recharge, suppressing the upward movement of the saline transition zone groundwater associated with seasonal sea level fluctuations. A transient simulation reveals a substantial reduction of up to 50 % in the volume of potable groundwater (i.e. in the freshwater lens) in response to the prolonged rainfall decline that started in the late 1960s combined with groundwater abstraction. The sustained regional winter rainfall decline experienced in the Southwest Australia region accounts for most of this reduction when considering transient sea level boundary conditions. The modelling approach used in this study for Rottnest Island offers insights that can be applied to other oceanic islands experiencing changing climatic forcings, particularly in regions where sea level variability plays a significant role. 2025-12-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10453/193460 Title: Developing robust lake sediment chronologies using 210Pb, Pu and radiocarbon dating of pollen concentrates and macrofossil: A case study from Lake Surprise, Victoria, Australia Authors: Dharmarathna, A; Cadd, H; Barr, C; Francke, A; Hua, Q; Child, D; Hotchkis, M; Zawadzki, A; Gadd, P; Turney, C; Marjo, CE; Tibby, J; Tyler, JJ Abstract: The development of reliable sediment chronologies is crucial for accurate interpretations of decadal to century-scale palaeoenvironmental changes in the late Quaternary. Although radiocarbon dating of sedimentary sequences is commonly undertaken, not all the organic fractions are representative of atmospheric ¹⁴C levels, resulting in inaccurate age models. Whilst terrestrial plant macrofossils are widely considered ideal dating material – assuming they are contemporaneous with the horizons being dated – they are often sparse or absent. In this context, radiocarbon dating of pollen extracts is increasingly being used as alternative dating material. Here, we used pollen radiocarbon dating, alongside a suite of macrofossil and bulk sediment dates, to develop a chronology for the Holocene sediments of Lake Surprise, in Victoria, Australia. ²¹⁰Pb activity and Plutonium (Pu) concentrations and isotope ratios were also analysed to constrain the age of the uppermost sediments, augmented with recent historical markers, including the first arrival of Pinus pollen and the date of an earlier coring expedition at the site in 2004. With respect to the radiocarbon dates, we found an age offset between the plant macrofossils and bulk sediment dates of 260 ± 86 ¹⁴C years and an offset of ∼340 ¹⁴C years between plant macrofossil and pollen extracts. In both cases, macrofossil dates appeared to be “younger” than the bulk sediment and pollen dates. The offset between pollen and plant macrofossil dates was found to vary with sediment depth and generally correlate with carbonate concentration in the sediment. Using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), we determined that the pollen extracts were not contaminated by either carbonate or charcoal. However, contamination by algal spores could not be ruled out, and we hypothesise that those algal spores may have assimilated aged dissolved inorganic carbon during periods of higher groundwater influx, thus altering the measured radiocarbon age of the pollen extract. Macrofossil and corrected pollen radiocarbon dates were incorporated in a Bayesian age-depth model which integrated ²¹⁰Pb activities and Pu data and bomb pulse C-14 dates validated using recent historical age markers. Our results suggest that it is possible to generate a robust geochronological framework for Lake Surprise using radiocarbon dating back to at least ∼10,846 cal yr BP. 2025-08-01T00:00:00Z