The aim of this new interdisciplinary minor is to develop students' capacities to be caring, connected and socially engaged contributors to their communities through practical engagement with industry partners, and critical reflection on personal, community and government responsibility for positive change.

Engaged citizenship is increasingly important in a world that is global, complex and connected. Knowledge and understanding of the ways citizens can actively participate in their local and national communities is crucial to societal wellbeing; equally important is informed awareness of what it means to be globally connected where the impacts of social, political and environmental challenges reverberate internationally. The health and sustainability of future societies depends on citizens who are well informed, resilient and flexible, with skills that are adaptable to changing circumstances and needs.

Find out more about this new minor on the UWA Handbook or learn how to incorporate this minor into your studies by contacting your Student Advising Office. You can also email the McCusker Centre for Citizenship Academic Coordinator.

The natural sciences have developed a robust consensus on climate and related environmental changes and the numerous threats these present to the human and natural environment. However, translating this scientific knowledge into effective policy is one of the great challenges of our time. STEM graduates need to have a detailed understanding of the international and domestic politics, planning and policy processes that are key to implementing solutions to these global, complex and interconnected problems.

This minor prepares students for work in government, scientific organisations, the private sector and voluntary organisations by teaching them how domestic and international policy is produced, enabling them to apply their scientific expertise towards effective policy design and implementation. This minor consists of three streams based on specific global challenges: Climate Change, Urban Environments, and Environmental Planning.

Find out more about this new minor on the UWA Handbook or learn how to incorporate this minor into your studies by contacting your Student Advising Office

Careful global management of ocean resources is key to a sustainable future, creating strong demand for graduates in a range of sectors of Australia's $100b Blue Economy. However, there has been a continuous deterioration of our capacity to conserve and sustainably use ocean resources due to climate impacts, pollution, water quality deterioration and an incomplete understanding of ocean environments. This gives rise to a range of global oceans challenges that society must address: in particular, developing sustainable solutions to oceans pollution, ecosystem conservation, food and energy production, coastal protection and, critically, improved societal understanding of the oceans.

The Oceans minor aims to provide students with the knowledge and skills foundation to identify:

(i) the extent, rates of change and complexities of these global oceans challenges,

(ii) the capacity for humans to influence ocean processes and environments, and

(iii) solution pathways for each challenge.

The minor is inherently multi-disciplinary, with each unit integrating views, approaches and understanding from the range of oceans-facing disciplines, including marine science, engineering, policy, planning and the social sciences. It is designed to allow students from all undergraduate programs at UWA to develop the skills required to drive the development of knowledge-led solutions to pressing ocean challenges and be valuable contributors to UWA's Grand Challenges programs.

Find out more about this minor in the UWA Handbook or learn how to incorporate this minor into your studies by contacting your Student Advising Office.

Certain challenges facing Western Australian communities are complex or 'wicked', with demographic, infrastructural, political, cultural and economic dimensions. In this unit, students form small teams to address different dimensions of social challenges, working collaboratively with academic staff and the unit partners (community groups, industry or government).

Approaches to Wicked Problems offers enquiry-based learning, leadership training and develops valuable skills transferable to later studies and employment. Further skills developed include self-awareness, deep listening, inclusive communication and teamwork.

In January 2020, the McCusker Centre for Citizenship delivered this unit for the first time in partnership with the WA Alliance to End Homelessness. Held over four weeks, the unit saw 20 undergraduate students work in groups to solve a problem for organisations working to end homelessness.

Wicked Problems can be taken as a standalone unit or as part of the new Minor in Active Citizenship.

The next Wicked Problems undergraduate unit will be offered in Summer 2021–2022. For more information, email our Academic Coordinator.

The Master of Ocean Leadership (MOL) provides graduates from any field with ocean-related leadership skills and expertise across marine science, engineering, law, resource economics and environmental management. This will enable graduates to strategically address human challenges in ocean systems and to implement solutions for the future of our coasts and seas.

The Master of Ocean Leader will equip you to work in multidisciplinary contexts to lead and contribute to effective teams. The course is a highly interactive program designed to be flexible and challenging for professionals and recent graduates alike.

The McCusker Centre for Citizenship partners with more than 300 not-for-profit, community and government organisations to provide students with structured, quality internship programs.

Internships are open to all eligible currently enrolled undergraduate and postgraduate UWA students. The programs are run throughout the year, over Semester 1, Semester 2, winter and summer.

Successful applicants may earn academic credit towards their degree when completing an internship. Students from regional areas have the opportunity to complete an internship in their local community.

The internship program can be taken as a standalone unit or as part of the new Minor in Active Citizenship.

Find out more about the internship programs

The McCusker Centre also runs a Student Advisory Committee (SAC) you may want to get involved in. The SAC represents the Centre at various internal and external events, organises student events and provides the Director with feedback on a range of topics including the Centre’s units and programs. If you would like to know more, email info@mccuskercentre.uwa.edu.au.

The Centre for Social Impact is a collaboration of three universities: UNSW Sydney, Swinburne University of Technology and The University of Western Australia. Its purpose is to catalyse positive social change to help enable others to achieve social impact.

The Centre aims to do this through transformational research and education that is rigorous and purpose-driven, and by working with people, communities and organisations to grow their capabilities through research, education and leadership development.

Find out more at the Centre for Social Impact website.

Global Citizenship is an online course delivered in partnership with global leadership organisation, Common Purpose. It helps you step up as a global citizen to tackle some of the world’s most pressing problems, through the lens of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

You’ll gain an understanding of the SDGs and complete experiential activities to challenge your perspectives, encourage open conversations and learn from the experiences of others.

Global Citizenship typically runs across January and February in the three weeks leading up to Semester 1. Specific details will be shared closer to the time.

Delivered in partnership with leadership organisation, Common Purpose, the Global Leader Experience (GLE) will develop your ability to lead from a global perspective. Alongside students from other areas of study, you’ll play a part in tackling the big issues facing businesses, governments and societies worldwide. 

The Global Leader Experience will provide you with practical experiences, instil in you a global perspective and challenge you to adapt to dynamic situations. You’ll come out of the experience equipped with the tools needed to lead change, now and in the future.

Global Leader Experience is typically run in person over four days in July in the lead-up to Semester 2.

Take part in this innovation challenge to build your employability and resilience, and help design solutions to real-world challenges in the City of Joondalup community using creative, technology-based approaches.

Over four days, you’ll work in an inter-university team to create a simulated start-up, identifying and addressing real-life problems impacting Joondalup residents and businesses, while being supported by professional industry mentors.

Find out more on the Joondalup Innovation Challenge website or get a firsthand account of the challenge from the 2020 UWA winners.

The Joondalup Innovation Challenge typically runs in July, prior to the start of Semester 2. 

The UWA Guild contains many opportunities for students to get involved.

There are numerous clubs and societies whose activities align with the UWA Grand Challenges and/or the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

The Student Guild Environment Department also works to promote sustainable change by providing a platform for students to engage with and advocate for environmental action. Visit the Environment Department website to learn how to get involved.

Explore clubs and societies

• AIESEC
• Man Up
• Students for Refugees 
• Teach Learn Grow 
• Ignite Mentoring
• TedxUWA
• Amnesty International 
• UneARThed 
• Artists Against Poverty UWA 
• Venture
• WA Youth Public Policy Institute
• Bloom 
• Enactus 
• Coders for Causes 
• Multicultural Students Union
• Progressive Energy Society 
• Save the Children UWA 
• Students for Refugees UWA
• Amnesty International
• Who Gives a Buck 
• UWA Science Union 

The Coronavax project is a joint initiative between the VaxPolLab at UWA and the Wesfarmers Centre of Vaccines and Infectious Diseases at Telethon Kids Institute. The project documents community attitudes regarding COVID-19 vaccines and communicates these to State and Commonwealth governments. It involves qualitative interviews and focus groups with key consumers, social media analysis, and functional dialogues with government departments, linking the voices of the community with the ears of government.

Coronavax contains numerous sub-projects. Coronavax 1 and 2 focus on young adults, adults 65+ years, healthcare and aged care workers, and parents and guardians. Coronavax 3 looks at hard-to-reach groups:

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults in the Perth metro area
• Adults from culturally and linguistically diverse communities
• Non-Indigenous adults living in regional or remote WA
• Adults from vulnerable communities experiencing homelessness, domestic violence or substance abuse
• Adults aged 18 to 64 years with comorbidities

Coronavax 3 asks what these groups need in terms of government communication and information regarding a COVID-19 vaccine. How do their attitudes compare to other vaccines? What are their concerns? How do they want government to speak to them? How can government best motivate or assist these groups to get vaccinated? By using interviews, focus groups, social media analysis and dialogue, we can document their concerns and communicate them to governments.

One of UWA’s Grand Challenges is A More Just and Equitable World Post-COVID-19. Relatedly, two of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals are Good health and well-being (SDG 3) and Reduced inequalities (SDG 10). Coronavax 3 fulfils this Grand Challenge and these goals by focusing on population groups that are difficult to reach and at risk of being ‘left behind’ during a mainstream COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

For a successful COVID-19 vaccine program, it is imperative we pay attention to groups at high risk of morbidity and transmission, particularly those expected to be poorly reached by mainstream rollout.

The COVID-19 outbreak experience in Melbourne’s public housing towers illustrates that communities are not homogenous, and need to be consulted regarding their own wellbeing and resilience. Western Australia’s Aboriginal communities have successfully advocated for policies and programs that keep them COVID-free. We need to build on these strengths and capacities by working with communities to research and develop plans for optimal vaccine uptake.

In a general sense, our climate is shifting poleward and the corridors of habitat that allowed species to track such shifts in the past are now in fragments. In 2010, a UWA-led team began a world-first initiative to circumvent this problem for a critically endangered reptile.

Seasonal wetlands 300km south of the known range of the Western Swamp Turtle (or tortoise) that are likely to provide suitable microclimates in the future were identified, and trial translocations of captive-bred turtles to candidate wetlands began in 2016. This type of action, known as ‘assisted colonisation’ or ‘assisted migration’ is controversial due to the risk of the introduced species transforming its new environment, but is not unlike situations where threatened animal species have been rescued from extinction by moving them to islands safe from invasive predators.

Western Swamp Turtles are also vulnerable to introduced predators, but critically, they need reliable winter rainfall to fill the seasonal wetlands where they breed and grow. The combination of lowering groundwater, reduced rainfall and heavily fragmented habitat surrounding the last remaining viable wild population north of Perth is making it impossible for this very rare species to mount a recovery without conservation interventions.

This project is an ongoing collaboration between university researchers (including many UWA PhD, honours and master’s students), and the Western Australian Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, and in recent years has been supported by the Threatened Species Recovery Hub of the National Environmental Science Program. It addresses SDG 13 Climate action and SDG 15 Life on land.

The team has produced many publications on this initiative and more generally on assisted colonisation, and project leader Nicki Mitchell has given several plenary addresses at international conferences on this emerging option for maintaining wild populations of threatened species under a changing climate.

The UWA Modern Slavery Research Cluster (MSRC) was established in 2019 and brings together interdisciplinary researchers from across UWA. Modern slavery is an umbrella term used to describe a number of crimes, including, but not limited to, human trafficking, forced labour, sexual slavery, child labour and trafficking, domestic servitude, forced marriage, bonded labour, slavery and other slavery-like practices. In 2018, Australia introduced its Modern Slavery Act (Cth) which requires businesses with an annual turnover of $100 million or more to publish annual statements on their actions to assess risks of modern slavery in their operations and supply chains.

According to the International Labour Organisation and the Walk Free Foundation, there are 40 million people in modern slavery around the world – 25 million people in forced labour and 15 million people in forced marriage. 71% of those in modern slavery are women and girls, and 25% are children. Some industries present a particular modern slavery risk and certain countries and regions are known to present a higher risk of modern slavery. The Asia Pacific region has a high incidence of modern slavery, so this is a risk for Australian companies with operations and supply chains in the region.

Robust research in this area is necessary and UWA’s MSRC brings together researchers from a number of schools including Law, Business, History, Social Sciences and Oceans with diverse interests in human rights, corporate law, supply chains, SMEs, forced marriage, consumers, and the history of slavery in Australia. 

Our work aligns closely with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. In particular, given the focus on issues such as forced labour, bonded labour and the worst forms of child labour, it links closely with SDG 8 Decent work. Severe worker exploitation also leads to and is facilitated by poverty (SDG 1 No poverty). In seeking to understand the causes of, and propose solutions to, modern slavery, we work towards SDG 10 Reduce inequalities.

The UWA Business School's commitment to advancing social responsibility is marked by its recognition as a signatory to the United Nations Principles of Responsible Management Education (UNPRME). Inspired by internationally accepted values embodied in the principles of the United Nations Global Compact, the PRME initiative connects business schools and business leaders to shape business management education in support of attaining the UN sustainable development goals.

The UWA Business School's commitment to advancing these goals is reflected in its teaching, research and community engagement activities. The activities of the Centre for Social Impact, academic staff and the student body have enhanced the School’s reputation as an organisation that is at the cutting edge of researching social issues such as homelessness, migration, workplace restructuring, and now the effects of COVID-19 and thinking through strategies that can respond to these big challenges.

Becoming a signatory to the UN PRME initiative reinforces the School's commitments in the areas of ethics, social responsibility and sustainability, and helps forge national and international collaborations that open up opportunities for UWA to both share with and learn from the best practice examples of other top academic institutions participating in the global PRME community.

The PRME principles provide a unique opportunity for the School and University to engage with our students to develop their capabilities to be future generators of sustainable value for business and society. The principles also provide us with the opportunity to develop our students’ potential to be leaders who are able to work with all community sectors, especially that of the business community, to explore effective approaches to address the sustainable development goals and meet social and environmental responsibilities.

The Wave Energy Research Centre (WERC) was established as a knowledge hub for the ocean energy community, and receives support from the Western Australian government and UWA. WERC provides world-class multidisciplinary research in three main interlinked research programs that support ocean renewable energy projects. In its ‘surface to seabed’ approach to ocean engineering challenges faced by the industry, WERC research focuses on data collection and modelling in Oceanography/Coastal Processes, Hydrodynamics/Wave-Structure Interaction, and Geotechnics/Foundation Design. Its activities are most closely aligned with the UN’s SDG7 Affordable and clean energy, SDG13 Climate action and SDG14 Life below water.

The Centre is the conduit for marine and renewable energy projects in the region, with additional leverage of national and international academic and industry networks. Data from WERC wave buoys is freely available to the public and to technology developers and is a trusted source for the local surfing community and ecotourism operators.

WERC headquarters are in Albany, in the Great Southern region of Western Australia, where operations, fieldwork and community outreach contribute to the prosperity and resilience of a regional community and local supply chain. WERC is founder and Steering Committee member of the Australian Ocean Energy Group (AOEG), which is an industry-led consortium that aims to accelerate innovation in and cost-competiveness of the ocean energy sector.

The United Nations Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development (Western Australia) is a network of leaders in sustainability research, training and education, working towards social, cultural, economic and environmental sustainability, using education as a central tool. A UN Regional Centre of Expertise (UNRCE) is not a physical centre or building, but rather an apolitical network of individuals, organisations and experts who understand the sustainability challenges in their home regions and are committed to using education as a tool for building a sustainable future. As of January 2022, over 170 RCEs have officially been acknowledged by the United Nations University worldwide, and we are one of 5 RCEs in Australia.

UNRCEs aspire to achieve the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals by building innovative ways for diverse organisations to work together to share information and collaborate. UNRCE networks include formal learning institutions, like schools and universities, as well as informal learning establishments, such as parks, museums, private enterprises, local governmental organisations, non-governmental organisations and the media. UNRCEs ensure that the many facets of sustainable development have a place in primary, secondary, and tertiary education and research, as well as in informal learning spaces.

There are currently two UNRCE WA Network Hubs:

• Perth
• Albany

Global RCE Network

Email RCE@uwa.edu.au

Under the banner of the two UWA Grand Challenges: A more just and equitable world post COVID-19, and Climate Change, the summit brought together, students, industry representatives, leaders in business and government, thought leaders, academics, and the community to explore the solutions for some of society’s most complex problems. It was a fantastic day of engagement, with over 200 participants, keynote sessions, 8 collaborative conversation workshops, and the interactive Game Changer Village.

UWA Grand Challenges Summit