Other disciplines demonstrate similar trends. Australian scholars, especially from the 1950s, played a major part in the initial recording, classifying and analysis of these languages. More recently, the intensity of language change in the region and the increasing importance of languages of intercultural communication have enabled Australian scholars to expand their theoretical work and remain in the international forefront of linguistic endeavour. In Human Geography in the late 1950s and 1960s, Australian scholars under the leadership of Spate and Brookfield developed a school of micro-scale study of rural areas, mostly in Melanesia, which led to distinctive and internationally recognised contributions in Development Geography and Development Studies more widely. Institutional Settings and Networks Scholars working on the Pacific Islands are employed in at least a dozen Australian universities, but most do not have another local colleague in their own discipline also working on the region, although there are sometimes such colleagues in other fields.
Few universities have more than three staff teaching and researching on the Pacific Islands.
Thus those with Pacific Islands interests often find it helpful to conduct some of their research while affiliated to the named research centres of the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies in the Australian National University, the Melanesian Studies Centre at James Cook University, and the Centre for South Pacific Studies at the University of New South Wales. The lack of centres with critical mass is demonstrated by the fact that the Centre for South Pacific Studies does not receive direct funding from UNSW and must rely on outside funding sources. It performs a valuable networking function locally, nationally and internationally and assists visiting scholars with Pacific Islands interests, but its research capacity is limited. In fact only the ANU's Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies has a critical mass for Pacific Islands research in world terms, and recent international and independent reviews have recognised its international standing in this field. Canberra also has a unique national resource for Pacific Islands Studies in the library resources available through the Pacific collections of the National Library and the ANU library.