The purpose of universities in the 21st century is tied not only to delivering quality education and research, but to accepting a moral responsibility to drive positive social change.
Although universities have long strived to take up their public purpose role and contribute to social change, the modes of applied practice are ever changing. We are always looking at more effective ways in which we can make this kind of change. The Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion exists to drive innovation at UTS in this space – to experiment, investigate, test and build new connections.
An obvious place to begin is our own local precinct.
Experimental partnerships
The Women’s and Girls Emergency Centre (WAGEC) in Redfern is a non-profit NGO that delivers a range of crisis response support and services to women, children and families at risk of homelessness and family violence.
They needed a Theory of Change for one of their programs, UTS was exploring opportunities to partner with organisations creating impact for local communities – and a partnership was born.
‘As we are exploring how we can better work in partnership to take up our public purpose role, we were interested in being experimental,’ says Mitra Gusheh, Executive Manager, Social Impact at the Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion.
Co-designing with community
Throughout a six-week sprint, UTS social impact evaluators and practitioners, with input for the UTS Design and Innovation Research Centre, co-designed the Theory of Change with WAGEC staff.
‘Being able to combine those areas of knowledge, skill and expertise allows us to be more strategic in what impact we’re trying to achieve at a greater population level, as well as for the individual clients’, says Helen Silvia, CEO of WAGEC.
‘It helped formulate our thinking, for us to be more targeted and pointed, which will help guide us in terms of our decision making in terms of use of our resources and to lead to greater social impact for our women.’
The end result came about through combining UTS’s expertise with WAGEC’s knowledge on delivering services.
‘Among the many strengths that WAGEC brought to the process is an incredibly strong place-based focus. Working to contextualise the program and be super responsive to the needs of their clients in their local space required their expertise and experience,’ says Mitra.
The old, transactional model of knowledge exchange is making way for one that focuses instead on transformational partnerships with two-way engagement and learning.
‘We brought knowledge of a certain method to help formulate thinking around strategic outcomes, but we relied on, and respected, the knowledge held by the practitioners. This is a better way of partnering with communities – one that is less transactional and more generative. WAGEC’s contribution also re-framed our own practices. We had capacity building taking place on both sides.’