= the Melbourne Social Science Research Network for Cryptoeconomies & Peer Governance, founded at the RMIT School of Economics, Finance and Marketing and the Swinburne Institute for Social Research [1]

Description

1.

"MELB CRYPTO is the Melbourne Social Science Research Network for Cryptoeconomies & Peer Governance. Founded at the RMIT School of Economics, Finance and Marketing and the Swinburne Institute for Social Research, the research network focuses on bitcoin- and blockchain-related social, economic, and political issues—taking a social science research perspective to what has until recently largely been the domain of computer science and cryptography." (https://melbcrypto.wordpress.com/)

2.

"Our mission is to explore and understand the emerging phenomena of cryptoeconomies and peer governance; to study their development, dynamics, and difficulties and possibilities, and to assess the need or lack thereof for laws and policymaking.

We envision an interdisciplinary social science research program, focused on the social, economic, and political consequences of cryptoeconomics, blockchain technology, distributed consensus mechanisms, peer-to-peer governance, and the like.

In detail:

We are a research network of social science scholars from across Australia and the world, with two distinct nodes in Melbourne: the School of Economics, Finance and Marketing at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University; and the Swinburne Institute for Social Research at Swinburne University of Technology.

MELB CRYPTO was launched with the aim of bringing together global experts in areas ranging from cryptography, to economics, to social research, and policymaking. We aim to create pathways for leading academics to connect across disciplines and build areas of critical mass in key areas of cryptoeconomic research.

We share resources and collaborate through regular meetings (e.g. in a reading group and for seminars), alternating between RMIT and Swinburne. The research network is still burgeoning and we plan to scale-up the organisation in 2016: the future model is an ARC Centre of Excellence or Cooperative Research Centre. For now, the purpose is to begin the process of assembling a multi-disciplinary/multi-institute cryptocurrency/blockchain research network. As such we are on the lookout for new scholars, research organisations, and industry and community partners.

Goals:

1. Provide a supportive and vibrate cryptoeconomics research network, and a strong platform for competitive grant applications and consultancies

Develop a critical mass for interdisciplinary collaboration and problem solving

Build links between universities, industry partners, and communities

Organise seminars and forums to debate and formulate analysis and policy for both government bodies and private organisations

2. Create opportunities for better promoting research findings to industry, government and non-government audiences

Play an educative role in the community, both local and global, about the difficulties and the possibilities of cryptoeconomies and peer governance

Provide research consultancy to all levels of government, industry, and community

MELB CRYPTO overlaps with three of the five research areas of strength at RMIT University:

(1) Designing the future; (2) ; Improving health and lifestyle (3) Smart technology solutions; (4) Sustainability and climate change challenges; (5) The future of cities

We do believe that there exist fruitful opportunities for cross-fertilisations, etc. with numerous research groups and centres at RMIT, including the International Development and Trade research group, the Information Security and Network Science research group, the Digital Ethnography Research Centre, the Platform Technologies Research Institute, and the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, among potential others."

Melb Crypto

Description

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