2024 Social Impact Grant recipients

Community-engaged research and practice grants

Co-designing workshop for Garguree

Project lead: Louisa King, Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building (DAB)
Project team: James Melson, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Health (FoH) 
Partner/s: Gundungurra Aboriginal Heritage Association Incorporated (GAHAI) and Gully Traditional Owner (GTO), David King, a Gundungurra Man

The project seeks to raise community awareness regarding groundwater and catchment issues, where the built environment often spatially isolates residents, hindering an understanding of the causes of water pollution. Swamp work; A framework for designing the swamp/built environment interface in the upper Blue Mountains, works with existing community led initiatives to develop a design guide for best practice for upland swamps and catchment health.

Co-designing a model for end-of-life care for those living with cognitive disabilities in Supported Independent Living

Project lead: Lindsay Asquith, DAB
Partner: Northcott Innovation

This project aims to create a new model of end-of-life care through co-design for residents living with disability in Supported Independent Living (SIL) at Northcott. This model will incorporate the ongoing perspectives of those in care, caregivers and the wider organisation to address the need for systems that are person-orientated with dignity at their core.

Aboriginal archives in Italy. A project to create spaces for reciprocal collaboration

Project lead: Monica Galassi, Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research
Partner/s: Museum of World Cultures, Ethnographic Museum "Giovanni Podenzana", Museum of Civilisation

The 'Aboriginal archives in Italy. A project to create spaces for reciprocal collaboration' aims to promote dialogue and facilitate collaborative research about archival records held in Italian institutions that contain information about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and histories. Its goal is to support the right to know of Aboriginal archivists and community members to find out about their heritage held overseas and to foster conversations on what a future space of exchange between Italy and Australia could look like over the future.

Dynamic assessment of technology-mediated communication in traumatic brain injury

Project lead: Sheree Lu, FoH
Project team: Prof. Emma Power, and Dr Lucy Bryant (Supervisor) 
Partner: Optimal Speech Pathology 

The purpose of this project is to create the first dynamic assessment tool of technology-mediated communication for individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI). This assessment tool will be critical for contemporary practice to enable clinicians to improve the clinical management of TBI and support people with TBI to achieve their rehabilitation goals in a digital society.

Exploring African Australians’ health literacy needs at the point of care and potential community-based health literacy interventions: Perspectives from consumers and providers

Project lead: Abela Mahimbo, FoH
Project team: Dr Michael Camit, Adjunct Fellow at UTS Business School, Health Literacy Manager at SWSLHD Multicultural Services
Partner: African Health

This project aims to explore health literacy needs of African Australians from both consumers (specifically focusing on Dinka speaking communities) and providers, and identify resources that that can enhance their health literacy at the point of care.

Weapons of Slow Destruction

Project lead: Darren Lee, UTS Data Arena  
Project team: Thomas Ricciardiello, Data Arena Visualisation Developer, and Ben Simons Technical Director, UTS Data Arena
Partner: National Justice Project 

'Weapons of Slow Destruction' is a curated, interactive exhibition that investigates the oppressive architecture and design of Australia's Offshore Detention Centre in Nauru. Hosted by and developed with the UTS Data Arena.

Bystander ally project: Minimising harm from SASH bystander reactions

Project lead: Rachel Bertram, UTS Business School 
Project team: Aimee Smith, final Year PhD student, UTS Business School, and Claire E F Wright, DECRA Scholar and lecturer, UTS Business School 
Partner: NSW Universities Prevention Connection

This exploratory study aims to improve our understanding of effective post-incident bystander behaviour in response to sexual assault and sexual harassment (SASH). This will strengthen policy, procedures and programs intended to support victim/survivors post-incident, with a secondary outcome of improved prevention of SASH incidents on campus. 

Scoping a pathway program for First Nations adult community educators

Project lead: Keiko Yasukawa, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS)
Project team: Dr Greg Martin, Associate Dean, Teaching and Learning, FASS, and Dr Bob Boughton, Adjunct Professor, School of Education, University of New England  
Partner: Literacy for Life Foundation 

This pathway project aims to produce a scoping analysis to inform the development of a UTS pathway program for First Nations peoples to become community adult literacy and numeracy educators.

Empowering queer Muslim voices: Building bridges for inclusion and support

Project lead: Lisa Siobhan Irving, FASS
Partner: Sydney Queer Muslims

The purpose of this project is to work with the organisation Sydney Queer Muslims to identify and address the mental health and social inclusion needs of LGBTQ+ Muslims in Sydney. This will be achieved by organising workshops to facilitate better communication and understanding between LGBTQ+ Muslims and select mental health and social support service providers, as well as developing evidence-based resources that can be distributed to raise awareness of the issues and raise standards of care.

STEM x Hub partnership

Project lead: Marco Angelini, Faculty of Engineering and IT (FEIT)
Partner: Sydney Secondary College 

This partnership is part of the UTS Women in Engineering and IT’s ‘STEM x’ schools outreach program. We deliver curriculum linked STEM learning programs to students, with an emphasis on pedagogical and cultural approaches that are aimed at maximising the engagement of young women in STEM educational pathways. The project’s aim is to increase girls’ confidence, interest and awareness in STEM studies in the short term, and participation in STEM careers in the long term. 

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Enabling change using the SIF Dashboards 

Improving students' financial literacy and wellbeing through targeted workshops and evaluation 

Project lead: Amir Armanious, UTS Business School

This project aims to assess and improve the financial literacy and wellbeing of UTS students, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds, to promote greater student equity and agency. The Social Impact Dashboards currently lack metrics on students' financial knowledge and behaviours. This project aims to fill that gap by gathering data through surveys before and after a series of targeted financial literacy workshops.

Understanding the critical role of inclusive community in STEM gender equity programs

Project lead: Faezeh Karimi, FEIT
Project team: Negin Shariati, Marco Angelini, Victoria Migueles, and Maryam Kausar, (all from UTS Women in Engineering and IT)

The project aims to understand the critical role an intersectional and inclusive community plays in STEM gender equity programs. The project learnings and outcomes are intended to increase the impact of similar gender equity programs, as most of these programs currently do not have such a community or regular programming.

Further first-year success: Co-designing and delivering interventions to increase support for students from LSES backgrounds who have failed a subject in their first year of study

Project lead: Jack Cornish, FoH
Project team: Lynn Sinclair, Associate Dean (Teaching and Learning), Faculty of Health, Zoe Vassallo - Project Officer, Centre for Social Justice & Inclusion (CSJI), Sarah Ellis, Manager, Success and Strategy, CSJI

This faculty-led pilot project aims to identify and provide targeted interventions to address the success needs of students from low-socioeconomic (LSES) backgrounds in the Faculty of Health FOH. Faculty-specific transition support activities will be developed in response to LSES student attrition and success data from the SIF dashboard, in combination with LSES Faculty of Health (FOH) assessment results from students’ first session of university (Autumn session). 

Developing an indicator of graduate outcomes for refugees and asylum seekers students supported by the Humanitarian Scholarship Program 

Project lead/s: Janet Ge, DAB
Project team: Dr Olga Oleinikova, Senior Lecturer, FASS, and Perpetua Burt, Student Equity Project Officer, CSJI

This research aims to investigate the economic and social status of graduates who were in the UTS Humanitarian Mentoring Program, in particular, what changes the students make after graduating from UTS.

Pathways to completion: Improving our understanding of U@Uni students’ experience from Academy to degree

Project lead: Lisa-Angelique Lim, Teaching Learning and Curriculum Unit 
Project team: Simon Buckingham Shum, Director, Connected Intelligence Centre, Sonal Singh, Executive Manager, Student Access and Equity, CSJI

This project aims to understand and address the needs of the U@Uni Academy (UUA) population, from their entry into this pathway program, through to their academic career in degree programs at UTS. Specifically, we want to understand the challenges that UUA students are facing from the time they enter the Academy to the time they complete their degree program, ultimately to offer them personalised and timely support for their learning needs as they transition into, and continue with, their degree programs. Understanding the challenges and providing personalised support to UUA students in their transition to university is particularly important given that the cohort is expected to increase to over 600 students in the coming years. 

Effective bystander metrics for victim-survivor support

Project lead: Catharine Pruscino, UTS Respect. Now. Always.
Project team: Rachel Bertram, HDR student, UTS Business School, and Aimee Smith, HDR student, UTS Business School

This project aims to undertake research to build an understanding of effective Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment (SASH) evaluation behaviour, including the design of evaluative resources to ensure whole-of-institution victim/survivor-centred responses. This is intended to address the overreliance on output data in relation to SASH and the use of outdated surveys that provide insufficient context for effective evaluation.