Last month was the annual International Careers Conference held by the AIIA Victorian branch. I was able to attend and was met by a fresh young cohort of bright-eyed students preparing to start their careers in international relations, development, and all the potential pathways for work in our global community.

The day gave me a renewed sense of hope for the work that so many young people do across the world to address the mounting and ever-complex issues we are individually and collectively facing.

Our generation is inheriting a strained global community. There is a litany of challenges we face: climate change, power shifts in international security with the new era of US foreign policy under Trump and an amplified Kim Jon Un’s North Korea, multiple ongoing refugee and humanitarian crises scattered through the globe, Brexit, the German elections, Australia’s own internal instability with our senator dual citizenship fiasco, growing income inequality, dying industries, the rise of e-currencies and the effect all this has on all pockets of society – it is an understatement to say we live in a complex time.

Quarterly Access aims to continue to bring fresh and unique perspectives from young professionals and graduates in Australia; offering their take on the issues that matter most to our generation.

In this issue we have four unique pieces by some exciting up and coming Australians. We have Matthew Mark Wilson’s Looking Into Iran and relations with the US under Trump, Kayla Slade’s investigation in Australia’s continued relationship with coal in the renewable energy movement, Stepjan Bosnjak’s exploration of free trade and what this means for Australia, and Rachel Nunn’s speech from the International Careers Conference on how she navigated her early career in humanitarian and international work.

We also want to say a big thank you to Felicity Driver, who has been an editor at QA for many years and is now moving onto some new and exciting projects, and wish her all the best.

Happy reading,

Nina Roxburgh, Editor-in-Chief