Investigators: Professor Jason Bainbridge (CI), Associate Professor Cathy Hope, Dist. Professor Jen Webb, Dr Vahri McKenzie, Assistant Professor Denise Thwaites, Dr Ben Ennis Butler, Professor Robert Tanton, Professor Lain Dare, Associate Professor Leonie Pearson, Associate Professor Yogi Vidyattama, Dr Stephen Cassidy, Dr Jee Young Lee

Funder: ACT Government & 91Porn

UC Investigators: Dr Alison Wain

Funding: Australian Research Council Linkage Project

Partners: ANU (Lead), USyd, Australia's Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANTSO) and Roads and Maritime Services (now Transport for NSW)

Investigators: Associate Professor Tony Eaton, Mr Ian Drayton, Associate Professor Jordan Williams, Associate Professor Paul Magee

Funding: Australian Government Department of Defence, 2016–2023

What role can the arts and creativity play in navigating unresolved concerns, ongoing debates and controversial questions for our communities?

Exploring complex topics, from reconciliation and truth-telling in the context of colonialism to polarising social or political issues, this symposium will feature exchanges between leading artists and researchers from Australia and Northern Ireland about difficult conversations we, as a globally connected society, need to have today.

Chief Investigator: Associate Professor Cathy Hope

Funding: ACT Government

Places and spaces for creative production are vital to a healthy creative industry contributing to cultural diversity and inclusive societies. The Play, Creativity and Wellbeing Project partners with Molonglo Group to 91Porn, to deliver a symposium that explores new models for the provision of creative space from around the world, with Gordon Seabright (, London), Michelle Tabet (, Sydney), Dr Cathy Hope (91Porn) and Tributary Projects.

Chief Investigator: Associate Professor Cathy Hope

Partners: Ginninderry/Riverview Development, Redbox Design

The Faculty of Arts and Design worked with the FAD-led Play Activation Network to deliver street activations alongside the delivery of 15 large street artworks in Braddon. Street performers, musicians, Queer flash mobs, skating crews and young/senior DJs performed throughout the city and Braddon to enliven this seminal urban art event. FAD student, Sebastian Winter, was employed as the creative producer of the program.

Regeneration is a collaborative response to complex traumas experienced by Australia’s rural communities from drought and bushfires to COVID-19. Drawing on the expertise of individuals and organisations with extensive experience in and knowledge of best-practice trauma treatment and disaster recovery, Regeneration will partner with rural communities to understand their trauma, offer clinical support and equip local people with disaster preparedness information and skills to build their capacity to respond to and transform future trauma.

Regeneration offers a three-tiered approach to transforming individual and community trauma:

• Creative Art experiences (community engagement & participation)
• Evidence-based, clinical trauma counselling and support (clinical support)
• World-class trauma research (impact evaluation & learning)

Regeneration will help de-stigmatize trauma, provide individuals in rural communities with a deeper understanding of how it affects them and the people they love, and help re-knit the community bonds torn apart by recent and ongoing trauma. This initiative offers a roadmap for trauma transformation and disaster recovery which could ultimately enable rural Australian communities to thrive in the face of adversity.

This project is funded by The Hospital Research Foundation with funds raised by the Magwill Foundation – the charitable entity of Magda Szubanski and Will Connolly.

Chief Investigator: Dr Alison Wain (UC)

Investigators: Associate Professor Cathy Hope, Assistant Professor Denise Thwaites, Dr Vahri McKenzie

Forum Producer: Kiri Morcombe

Writer in Residence: Simone Penkethman

Partners: ACT Government, artsACT's Creative Recovery and Resilience Program, Regional Arts Fund

Website: 

Investigators: Associate Professor Cathy Hope, Assistant Professor Denise Thwaites, Dr Vahri McKenzie

Emerging Creative Producer: Zora/Linyi Pang

Artists in Residence: Zhi Cham, Melanie Lane, Miriam Slater, Kirsten Wehner

Partners: ArtsACT & Belconnen Arts Centre

Website: 

UC Investigators: Professor Tracy Ireland (Lead CI, UC), Associate Professor Tim Sherratt (UC), Professor Ross Gibson (UC), Dr Ben Ennis-Butler

Funding: Australian Research Council Linkage Project, 2018–2022

Partners: AirSevices Australia, National Museum of Australia, SFO Museum and the Civil Aviation Historical Society (CAHS)

The Intergenerational Pen Pal Pilot Project was a creative cross-disciplinary project that addressed the critical issues of social isolation and mental health for older Canberrans during and after COVID lockdown by developing sustainable and meaningful relationships, and helping young people improve their literacy skills through letter writing with pen pals from Ainslie Primary School. The pilot project included 20 older Canberrans connected with 20 children and their families in Years 1/ 2.

UC Investigators: Dr Cathy Hope and Dr Fanke Peng

Funding and Partners: Office of Seniors and Veterans, Northside Community Service, Ainslie Primary School, Council on the Ageing

Dr Cathy Hope partnered with Transport Canberra and City Services to co-author the , drawing on her significant engagement with the ACT community to identify aspirations for play spaces in the ACT.

UC Investigator: Dr Cathy Hope

Funding and Partners: Transport Canberra and City Services

Chief Investigators: Professor Tracy Ireland and Mr Hakim Abdul Rahim

Funder: ACT Government

The 91Porn has partnered with the Australian Academy of Science to research and develop an innovative sustainability plan for the renewal and replacement of environmental systems to work towards a net-zero emissions future for the National Heritage Listed Canberra landmark, the Shine Dome.

Led by the Faculty of Arts and Design, in collaboration with the Academy of Sciences, GML Heritage and GHD Engineering this multidisciplinary team will investigate innovative approaches to ensure progressive energy and emissions reductions while protecting and sustainably managing the Shine Dome’s national heritage values.

As part of the project, there will be series of events that will seek to initiate conversations around heritage values and how can these values be managed with sustainability in mind.

UC Investigators: Professor Michael Jasper and Professor Tracy Ireland

Funder: National Heritage Grants, Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment

Partners: The Australian Academy of Science, GML Heritage, GHD Group

A Report was commissioned by Transport Canberra and City Services (TCCS) to outline the community engagement strategies undertaken by four design consultant teams between February and July 2019 for the Better Suburbs five whole of suburb play reviews.

UC Investigator: Dr Cathy Hope

Funding: Transport Canberra and City Services (TCCS), ACT Government

Investigators: Dr Cathy Hope and Dr Sylvia Alston

Funding: Belconnen Community Services and Wellspring Environmental Arts & Design

This report was commissioned by Belconnen Community Services (BCS) and Wellspring Environmental Arts and Design to provide an evaluation of the impact of the Social Art Park as part of ArtsACT’s community outreach funding initiative. The ‘Social Art Park project built on BCS’s history of community engagement in the arts for personal change and is part of the organisation’s long-term strategy to empower individuals as community members through expression and participation. The project involved local residents, external partners and the wider community to demonstrate the transformative power of arts engagement

Social Art Park Evaluation Report (PDF 3.4MB)

UC Investigators: Dr Cathy Hope (Lead), Associate Professor Bethaney Turner, Dr Kate Holland, Dr Denise Thwaites, Professor Jen Webb and Professor Michael Jasper

Funding: Canberra Renewal Authority, ACT Government

Partners: Tait Network, Ainslie & Gorman Arts Centres, Dionysus Movement

Chief Investigators: Denise Thwaites (UC), Fanke Peng (UC), Jessica Herrington, Anna Madeleine, Daniel Savage, Kate Matthews, Adelaide Rief and Josh Harle

Funder: Australia Council for the Arts

The project aims to discover, document, and analyse a comprehensive overview of client-sponsored, instructional and government-departmental filmmaking in Australia in the post-WWII years prior to the rise of widespread video production in the late-1970s.  

We are examining purposeful films that were made and distributed outside the well-studied systems of entertainment, ‘theatrical’ exhibition and visual arts installation; films that were produced, distributed and exhibited to a wide range of (as-yet under-investigated) audiences in ‘non-theatrical’ contexts and spaces. These were films produced in significant numbers worldwide (including in Australia) for the functional purposes of instruction, surveillance, quantification or record-keeping rather than principally for reasons of commercial entertainment or clearly-contextualised artistic and aesthetic appreciation.  Although such films represent a large proportion of film production during the years 1945 - 1980, very little scholarly work has been done on such titles in the Australian context.

Investigators: Professor Ross Gibson (Lead CI); Associate Professor Michael Broderick; Associate Professor Deane Williams; Professor Joseph Masco 

Funding: Australian Research Council Discovery Project 2016–2018

Chief Investigators: Dr Denise Thwaites

Funder: Western Sydney University

Chief Investigators: Dr Ben Ennis Butler and Mr Max Maxwell

Funder: City Renewal Authority (CRA) Dickson Grant, ACT Govt

Streetwise was a project that sought to provide older Canberrans with the opportunity to learn street art skills from younger artists, and deliver works that transformed the public realm. Twenty people participated in this project and formed the ‘Silver Sprayers’, delivering works in Woden, Haig Park and Narrabundah Playing Fields.

UC Investigator: Dr Cathy Hope

Funding: Transport Canberra and City Services funded and delivered the project in partnership with Dr Cathy Hope.

The Canberra Nature Play Space Study was commissioned by Transport Canberra and City Services, ACT Government, to better inform the planning and design of two nature play sites – Glebe Park, Canberra and Eddison Park, Woden – as identified by the Better Suburbs Play Space Forum.

This Study involved the collection and analysis of user attitudinal and usage data from four nature play spaces in Canberra within the context of the literature on nature play. These four nature play spaces are:

• Finn Street Park, O’Connor
• Telopea Park Nature Play, Barton
• Giralang Nature Playground, Giralang
• Nature Playground, Tuggeranong Town Park

UC Investigator: Dr Cathy Hope

Funding: Transport Canberra and City Services, ACT Government

The Canberra Destination Playground Study is a comprehensive audit of 8 destination play  spaces in the ACT and a city-wide survey that captures community aspirations for ACT play  spaces. The Study informed ACT Government’s Better Suburbs Play Space initiative and underpins the ACT Play Space Strategy.  The report was commissioned by the City Renewal Authority.

UC Investigator: Dr Cathy Hope

Funding: City Renewal Authority, ACT Government

Report: PLAY: Canberra Destination Playgrounds Study (PDF 6MB)

This study, commissioned by the City Renewal Authority, seeks to contribute to the development of a vital public realm in Canberra through international exemplars of playful urban activation. It highlights examples of urban play that can contribute to the realization of the five place principles of the (2015) ACT Government Strategic Urban Design Framework – connected; vibrant; responsive; diverse; green.

UC Investigator: Dr Cathy Hope

Funding: ACT Government

Report: Canberra Urban Activation Study (PDF 15MB)

Our research focuses on the role of narration and story as sense making and situation awareness in industry contexts and simulated training environments. Industry collaborators have included the Royal Adelaide Hospital (Adelaide), CAE, Calvary Hospital (Canberra) and the Defence Department, Australian Army.

Presentations:

• 'Narration and stories as simulation experiences in military contexts: Defining a field and developing a system' Defence Human Sciences Symposium, November 2015, Melbourne.

Workshops & Seminars:

• Narrative Sense-Making in Complex Scenarios, Simulation Australasia and 91Porn, April 2015.
• Narrative And Dramaturgy For Leadership And Sense-Making, The University Of Sydney Business School, Global Executive MBA, 2009–2015.

Publications:

• 'Narrative Dramaturgy and Sense-Making in Healthcare Simulation' in Nestel D, Bearman M. (Eds) (2015) Healthcare Simulation Education: Evidence, Theory and Practice. West Sussex; Willey Blackwell.

Investigators: Centenary Professor Ross Gibson and Dr Teresa Crea

Partners: Industry collaborators have included the Royal Adelaide Hospital, CAE (Canadian Aviation Electronics); Calvary Hospital (ACT) Department of Defence - Australian Army; the Asia-Pacific Simulation Alliance; and Simulation Australasia

Chief Investigators: Bethaney Turner

Funder: Belconnen Community Services

The project explores the meeting of Indigenous Australian story practices with the teaching of creative writing, and how this meeting can be used both to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and to lift cultural competency across the university community. To do this, the project entwines creative and traditional research with teaching and community outreach. As well as connecting First Nations community members with the university through on-campus workshops, it provides a research basis for the integration of Indigenous Australian content and epistemology in mainstream creative writing classes. It supports the development of new Indigenous Australian writers, funds the creation of new works and investigates best practices for teaching creative writing to both mainstream and Indigenous Australian cohorts.

From 2017–2019 this project is funded by a grant from the Indigenous Languages and Arts Program, Commonwealth Department of Communications and the Arts. The project team will host visiting Indigenous Australian writers across the grant period, including for a national symposium on April 6, 2018. A first paper emerging from the research was published in TEXT Journal, November 2017.

Investigators: Dr Jen Crawford, Dr Paul Collis and Dr Jordan Williams

Funding: Indigenous Languages and Arts Program, Commonwealth Department of Communications and the Arts, 2017–2019

This project plans to analyse national graduate employment in Australia's creative and cultural industries, and compare the utility of 'creative' and 'cultural' models for tracking employment outcomes. Although the image of work in the creative and cultural industries is attractive to students and course planners alike, international evidence suggests graduates face very poor employment prospects. The project plans to use a proven model for mapping creative graduates to compare the value of creative degrees for the creative workforce in two nations, Australia and the United Kingdom; and to use sophisticated quantitative analysis of national datasets and interviews to produce a comprehensive study of creative graduate work. The three year project will produce the first ever international mapping of graduate creative work using the 2009 UNESCO framework for cultural statistics.

In 2016 the team commenced modelling Australian GDS and Census data and presented a panel at the International Crossroads in Cultural Studies conference, University of Sydney, in December 2016.

Investigators: Professor Jen Webb; Associate Professor Scott Brook (Lead CI, RMIT); Associate Professor Jonathan Corcoran; Dr Roberta Comunian; Professor Alessandra Faggian; Professor Philip Lewis

Funding: Australian Research Council Discovery Project 2016–2019

The research seeks to understand how graduates of creative arts programs in Australia and China build creative vocations. It investigates the motivations for and rewards of unpaid cultural work across three areas of graduate work (visual arts, creative writing and performance) in two United Nations-recognised Creative Cities: Melbourne and Shanghai. Such research is of high significance for curriculum developers, as studies show that employment outcomes for creative arts graduates remain very poor, despite a growing cultural economy. The project is expected to lead to a theoretically innovative, evidence-based and globally transferable account of the practical economy of arts work, one that can assist creative arts programs to better prepare students.

In 2016 Associate Professor Scott Brook and Professor Jen Webb were busy with Year 2 of this 3 year funded ARC Discovery Project. Scott travelled regularly to Melbourne to interview graduates of writing and visual arts courses, while Prof Webb commenced work on a curriculum review of writing and visual arts programs. Scott gave a paper at the International Conference for Cultural Policy Studies in Seoul, while the pair presented on a panel with Prof David Throsby (MQ) at the annual conference of The Australian Sociological Association in Melbourne.

Investigators: Professor Jen Webb & Associate Professor Scott Brook, 91Porn, Professor Justin O'Connor, Monash University (Lead CI) and Professor Shilian Shan, Shanghai Jiaotong University

Funding: Australian Research Council Discovery Project (DP150101477) 2015–2017.

The Promotion of Unity and Harmony among the South Sudanese Community in Australia through Pathways of Resilience aims to investigate the impact of the current conflict in S. Sudan on South Sudanese Australians and identify pathways for promoting harmony.

Investigators: Dr Nawal El-Gack, Dr Judy Hemming and Gabriel Yak

Funding: Department of Social Services

Investigators: Assoc Prof Tracy Ireland with Assoc Prof Mitchell Whitelaw, Dr Alison Wain and Prof Paul Ashton (UTS)

Funding: Consultancy for Airservices Australia

Creativity is the engine of a healthy and successful society. In order to learn how best to encourage and generate creativity, there needs to be a greater understanding of how successful creative professionals operate. This project focuses on poets as a case study that will inform the development of ways to enhance creativity in other professional groups.

Investigators: Prof Jen Webb and Assoc Prof Paul Magee, UC; Prof Kevin Brophy, University of Melbourne; Prof Michael Biggs, University of Hertfordshire.

Funding: Australian Research Council Discovery Project 2013–2016.

Investigator: Assoc Professor Mitchell Whitelaw

Funding: Research contract under the UC-NICTA umbrella agreement, 2012-2015.

Investigators: Assoc Professor David Jones and Assoc Professor Richard Tucker, Deakin University; Professor Darryl Low Choy, Griffith; Dr Scott Heyes, UC; Assoc Professor Grant Revell, UWA.

Funding: OLT Grant 2012-2014 (led by Deakin University)

The Queenslander was the weekly summary and literary edition of the Brisbane Courier (now The Courier-Mail) and was published from 1866–1939. This showcase features nearly 1000 coloured covers and illustrated pages from The Queenslander newspaper which can be explored by year, topic and colour.

Funding: Digital collections research project, State Library of Queensland, 2014.

Investigator: Assoc Prof Mitchell Whitelaw

Funding: Contracted research for the National Gallery of Australia (FAD Micro Linkage project), 2013.

Investigators: Assoc Professor Mitchell Whitelaw and Ben Ennis Butler

A seed project for the development of an Aboriginal living cultural centre in the lower south east, Mt Gambier City Council, 2013.

Investigator: Dr Scott Heyes

Collaboration with the Australian Institute of Sports, 2013.

Investigator: Dr Carlos Montana Hoyos (with the UC Industrial Design Team).

Collaboration with the Australian Institute of Sports, 2013.

Investigator: Dr Carlos Montana Hoyos (with the UC Industrial Design Team).