Welcome to ALARA

Welcome to the home of ALARA - the Action Learning, Action Research Association. ALARA is a strategic network of people interested in using action research and action learning to generate collaborative learning, research and action to transform workplaces, schools, colleges, universities, communities, voluntary organisations, governments and businesses.

ALARA's vision is that action research and action learning will be widely used and publicly shared by individuals and groups creating local and global change for the achievement of a more equitable, just, joyful, productive, peaceful and sustainable society. See "ALARA Flyer" below for more, or keep browsing this website.

The ALARA 2013 Australasian Conference will be held at Riverglenn, Brisbane, Australia on 23-24 September 2013. The conference will provide an opportunity for professional and personal development and renewal of practitioners in business, government, education and community sectors. Around the theme "Creating a Better World", the conference will investigate how individuals, organisations and communities contribute to handing on a better world. We have presenters coming from the United Kingdom, United States of America, Malaysia, Singapore, Vanuatu and most states of Australia. A list of presenters and their topics is below.

You are invited to register to attend the conference here . Hurry early bird registrations (with good discounts) close on 15 July 2013. ALARA members please register for the conference at the link on the front page of the ALARA website. There is no need to log into the ALARA website, prior to registering. If you are not a member of ALARA, please consider joining ALARA and taking advantage of member discounts to attend the conference. Membership is a moderate $145 or $95 for concessional.

The link to the call for proposals for participative workshops is also below. Any enquiries contact admin@alara.net.au

Deb Lange and Rosemary Shapiro-Liu have drawn together principles and practices for participatory processes in ALARA events - see the pdf below - and will facilitate a community building process at the national conference.  

ALARA member Robyn Taylor's online LinkedIn discussion group for students and educators interested in collaborative and participative approaches to learning and research now has 33 members! Further information on the group is available in the flyer below. To join, use the link above or search for "ALARA Inc. Tertiary Education Community" in the LinkedIn group directory.

LinkedIn also has a discussion group on Action Research and Learning in Organisations, which has a steady trickle of discussion and questions from people apply these methods to learning in organisations. For example, there's a discussion starting on costs and benefits of applying Action Learning - What are the latest organizational assessments?

From Theory to Practice; Context in Praxis - ALARA's 8th Action Learning, Action Research and 12th Participatory Action Research 2010 World Congress Proceedings is now available.

This 270-page book has 24 papers from authors from around the world on a wide variety of topics and situations where they have used Action Learning or Action Research. Some abstracts from the presentations during the World Congress are available at ALARA's World Congress site, and the book with selected papers is available in printed paperback or pdf formats from Sydney University Press at http://purl.library.usyd.edu.au/alara/18391168.