Social change and equity
Social change and equity
Social inequality is driven by structural disadvantages such as race and gender, economic systems, climate change, and lack of access to basic resources.
Achieving social justice and equality requires long term and sustainable action to close the inequity gap.
La Trobe's research into Social change and Equity contributes to the following United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Selected impact stories
Leading Team: Erik van Vulpen
An estimated 1.3 billion people in the world (roughly 16% of the population) experience significant disability. New transport technologies can improve mobility outcomes for people with disability and older people, and help them to overcome barriers in accessing transportation, gaining greater autonomy and independence. With funding from iMove Australia, La Trobe’s Centre for Technology Infusion (CTI), has partnered with the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts (DITRDCA) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation’s (APEC) Intermodal and Intelligent Transportation Systems Expert Group (IIEG) to promote the uptake of these technologies. Through workshops conducted with APEC member economies, the CTI identified the barriers hindering the adoption of technological opportunities, and collated international resources, case studies and best practice approaches to help demonstrate practical approaches to overcoming these issues in a ‘how-to’ guide for policy makers. The guide - ‘Improving the Accessibility and Inclusivity of Public Transport through New and Emerging Transport Technologies: Best Practice Guidance for Policy Makers’ - is published on the APEC site, has been presented through workshops with the APEC group involving members from over 20 different countries, and has been downloaded over 2000 times.
Leading Team: Clare Wright
Recognising and celebrating diversity throughout history is both politically urgent and socially imperative. To counteract the dominance of a heteronormative narrative in Australian colonial history, the Queer Goldfields digital archive was launched in May 2025. Research by La Trobe’s Prof. Clare Wright assisted the City of Ballarat and partners at Federation University in devising a conceptual framework for recuperating the Victorian goldfields as a site of cultural, social and gender diversity.
Queer Goldfields presents a curated collection of nineteenth-century primary source material including newspapers, photographs, and prison records, reviving historical LGBTQ+ biographical experiences for a modern audience. As City of Ballarat describe the initiative, ‘We are researching and presenting stories of our queer ancestors, to ensure they are remembered and to show that LGBTIQA+ people have been present in every society’.
Leading Team: Anisur Rahman
It is a legal requirement of the Residential Tenancies Act that all rental properties in Victoria with rental agreements starting after March 2021 comply with 14 minimum standards. New laws passed by the Victorian government mean that, as of November 2025, rental properties must meet these standards before they are advertised. But collecting and managing compliance data from the hundreds of thousands of rental properties across the state, and turning this data into something useable for landlords, estate agents, tenants and state officials is challenging. Property Compliance Victoria - one of the organisations involved in auditing rental properties – engaged La Trobe University’s Data Analytics team lead by Dr Anisur Rahman to undertake an independent analysis of 11,500 of the most recent Minimum Standards audits, transforming a mass of unstructured data into a dashboard which provides a clear picture of how rental properties across the state are performing. The data covers 441 suburbs and 103 estate agent groups and is mapped against socio-economic areas, showing performance over time and against individual and overall requirements. Over the coming months, Property Compliance Victoria ‘will be sharing key insights uncovered through this analysis’ with the aim of driving up levels of compliance.
Historical landscape change from 1858 to 2019 modelled along Ballarat’s Main Road, including areas of high archaeological significance.
Leading Team: Greg Hil
La Trobe researcher Greg Hil has developed a method of predicting and identifying sites of likely high archaeological and cultural value by comparing historical elevation data available on historical maps of Melbourne and Ballarat to more recent records of elevation, such as later topographic maps or twenty-first century LiDAR. The models have been used to successfully predict areas of high archaeological potential ahead of new development projects, thereby both avoiding the costs associated with having to halt development works that have already started and improving our ability to identify and preserve sites of cultural value.
‘Greg’s work has produced a detailed and accurate mapping product which identifies the parts of the city where significant historical archaeological remains are likely to survive. It is used on an almost daily basis to assist with the protection and management of Melbourne’s historical archaeology’.
- Jeremy Smith (Principal Archaeologist, Heritage Victoria)
In Ballarat, Hil’s elevation modelling was used to identify sites for further investigation through a Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) survey commissioned by Heritage Victoria. On the back of this research, the Heritage Council of Victoria provided funding for Heritage Victoria’s archaeology team to develop an Archaeology Management Plan for Ballarat to identify and list historical archaeological sites. Further historical elevation change modelling has been carried out across Ballarat in 2024, and over 100 new sites of archaeological interest have been registered.
‘New technologies such as digital elevation modelling have highlighted that the archaeology is likely to be preserved in outstanding condition across parts of Ballarat, under metres of mining waste’.
- Archaeological Management Plan, Heritage Victoria
Leading Team: Pauline Crameri
In 2012, following the amendment to the Aged Care Act (1997) to include older LGBTI people as a special needs group, the Federal Government launched the National (LGBTI) Ageing and Aged Care Strategy. The Act and strategy recognised older LGBTI people as a ‘Special Needs Group…requiring particular attention due to their experience of discrimination and the limited recognition of their needs by service providers and in policy frameworks and accreditation processes’. The strategy committed to supporting and resourcing the aged care sector so that it could ensure equitable access to LGBTI inclusive aged care services.
Val’s Ageing & Aged Care (Val’s), a part of Rainbow Health Australia at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society (ARCSHS) at La Trobe University, was established in 2009, and was one of the first programs in the world to look at the experience of older LGBTI people. For over ten years following the launch of the Federal Government’s LGBTI Ageing and Aged Care Strategy and subsequent Aged Care Sector diversity frameworks and initiatives, Val’s has been funded by the Department of Health and Aged Care to work with aged care, health and human services providers, and a range of community stakeholders to improve the health, wellbeing and visibility of older LGBTI people and to support aged care services to develop LGBTI-inclusive services. Val’s has played a key part in the implementation of the strategy (see the Ageing and Aged Care Strategy Review) through delivering training and coaching workshops, developing Self-Assessment and Planning Tools, promoting the LGBTI Inclusive Practice Service Accreditation (the Rainbow Tick) for aged care providers, implementing education programs, and working in partnership with Alzheimer's Australia (now Dementia Australia) on a project documenting LGBTI people's experiences of dementia, which informed the development of a guide to LGBTI inclusive dementia services. Whilst initially focussed on Victoria, Val’s has also provided training across New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia.
Leading Team: Phuc Nguyen
To effectively place highly disadvantaged jobseekers into employment, particularly those with intellectual and developmental disabilities, remains a challenge for welfare-to-work reforms in Australia and elsewhere. The current Disability Employment Services (DES) model adopts a market-based approach involving engagement of private providers in service delivery and outcome-based payments. Contracted providers are paid an outcome fee for finding and placing jobseekers into employment or organising education and training which prepares them for work. However, evidence indicates that the system does not work well for highly disadvantaged jobseekers who face complex barriers to employment like a disability, as providers are disincentivized to work with these individuals. Since 2022, Central Victoria Group Training (CVGT) has developed and been trialling a specialist service model known as the Specialist Disability Services Team (SDET), which is based on close links with student, training, educational and community organisations, and the development of personal relationships with jobseekers and individualised support for employers. In 2023, CVGT partnered with La Trobe researcher Phuc Nguyen and University of Melbourne researcher, Mark Considine, to develop the evidence-base for this practice model. With the current Disability Employment Services (DES) program in the process of re-contracting, findings from the final report (September 2024) provide evidence of how the person-centred model works to improve employment outcomes for this group of jobseekers, and how the commissioning framework might be redesigned to reward providers who are willing to engage in potentially more costly but higher quality services for highly disadvantaged clients.
Leading Team: Tarryn Phillips and Edward Narain
Fiji is recognised globally as a tourist destination for its beaches, coral reefs, and rainforests. But its colonial history and the complex legacy that this continues to play is less well known. For over ten years, La Trobe researcher Tarryn Phillips has worked alongside iTaukei and Indo-Fijian communities to carry out medical anthropology research on issues including diabetes, nutrition, and inequality. Her husband Edward Narain, a political analyst, was born and raised in Fiji and is the grandchild of indentured labourers, who – along with over 60,000 others - were forcibly moved from south Asia by the British colonial government to work on sugar plantations in Fiji between 1879 and 1916. In 2024, Phillips and Narain decided to use their decades of ethnographic research and lived experience to publish the novel Sugar. A compelling murder mystery, this format is designed to appeal to a broader audience and to resonate with readers more than an academic text. The book raises awareness of the history of colonialism and indentured labour, its legacy of social inequality, and the impact of globalisation and big business on fueling serious health challenges including diabetes in Fiji. The novel is published as part of the University of Toronto Press’s Teaching Culture series, designed to ‘introduce students to the core methods and orienting frameworks of ethnographic research and provide a compelling entry point to some of the most urgent issues faced by people around the globe today’. Phillips and Narain have discussed the social, cultural and historical issues which underpin the novel in interviews with ABC Pacific, SBS Hindiand RRR. The book has become a bestseller in Fiji and is being used in anthropology curriculum internationally. They have also presented their practical learnings about the experience of writing as a couple through a public roundtable discussion with Bruce Pascoe at the Bendigo Writers Festival entitled ‘When Two Heads are Better than One’.
Leading Team: Zoe Cloud and Anna Booth
Most women in the criminal justice system have experienced family violence, and remain at further risk of violence after their release from prison. Further to the Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence, the Victorian Government (Family Safety Victoria) commissioned a study to determine the factors which could provide most effective protection. A La Trobe research team led by Dr Zoe Cloud and Dr Anna Booth gathered testimony from women with lived experience of both family violence and incarceration, as well as interviewing prison staff. The resulting recommendations included safe accommodation following release, specialised training for prison officers, and gender-responsive, systemically-focused and trauma-informed support programs for women in custody.
In February 2025, Corrections Victoria published a new guide to Family Violence Programs and Services. Reflecting the recommendations from the La Trobe University report, this new guide includes referral to survivor services such as women’s trauma counselling and culturally responsive support. Programs also include training for staff and individualised transition plans preparing women for a safe return to the community.
Leading Team: Andrea Carson
Led by La Trobe’s Prof. Andrea Carson, the Women for Media Report was the largest study ever undertaken in Australia regarding women’s journalism and the media representation of women. It showed that a persistent gender disparity remains, affecting both authorship and content. Male authors, for example, continue to dominate masthead opinion pieces and “hard news” subjects such as international relations. Men account for 78% of quoted sources on front pages.
The report was launched at the Women’s Leadership Institute of Australia in October 2024 and prompted over 100 media stories in follow-up coverage. It sent shockwaves across Australian media by confirming what had previously been suspected, but was now proven. “The data holds you to account,” acknowledges Justin Stevens (Director of News, ABC). Fiona Dear, Director of News and Current Affairs at Nine, is resolute: “We have to change it… We’ve got no choice.” Other responses from network leadership were unanimous that transparency and visibility are essential to changing the culture that has entrenched gender bias in the media.
Leading Team: Kayli Wild
Gender-based violence (GBV) affects the majority of women in Timor-Leste. Equipping health workers with the skills to recognise, respond to, and document the health impacts of violence is critical to ensuring survivors receive effective care and access to justice, even in the most remote areas.
Building on research with survivors of violence and evaluation of a pilot curriculum, an implementing partnership between La Trobe University and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) was developed. A key milestone was the launch of a national training curriculum for nurses, midwives, doctors, health managers, and specialists at UNFPA-funded “Safe Spaces”, which provide GBV survivors with emergency accommodation and onward referrals. Follow-up evaluations confirm that this initiative has deepened providers’ knowledge and confidence in responding to GBV, with women describing staff as “caring with the heart.”
Another major achievement of the initiative is the integration of GBV data into the national health information system (HMIS), enabling the Ministry of Health to track incidence and response trends over time. To date, over 685 health providers across 9 municipalities have been trained using the tailored curriculum, job aids, videos, and support model developed through this collaboration, and more than 1,000 survivors received care in 2023 alone.
Leading Team: Piers Gooding
Digital mental health services, including telehealth, digital therapies, and sensor-based monitoring, have become increasingly prevalent post-pandemic. There is a pressing need for regulation to keep pace with practice. Research by La Trobe’s Dr Piers Gooding has contributed to the development of legal and ethical frameworks for digital mental healthcare, particularly the essential dimension of lived experience involvement.
In 2021, Gooding was invited to provide expert witness testimony to the Victorian Royal Commission into Mental Health. His research was cited over 60 times throughout the Final Report, influencing the recommendations regarding digital technology in mental healthcare. Internationally, Gooding co-authored a 2024 report on lived experience in digital mental healthcare for the Wellcome Trust, which is now required reading for applicants in Wellcome’s global mental health funding call (totalling £90 million in 2024). He co-authored the position statement on ethics and law for the eMental Health International Collaborative, the global peak body for best practice in digital mental health. Recent policy citations include UK parliamentary briefing notes on regulatory considerations around mental healthcare and AI.
Leading Team: Rebecca Flower and Ellen Richardson,
The Neurodiversity Employment Toolkit is a groundbreaking resource designed to help employers create neurodiversity-inclusive workplaces by providing practical guidance on recruiting, supporting, and retaining neurodivergent employees. Developed by La Trobe University in partnership with the Victorian Public Sector Commission (VPSC), the toolkit addresses a critical gap in resources for employers seeking to reduce workplace barriers for neurodivergent individuals.
Neurodivergent La Trobe researchers Dr Rebecca Flower and Ellen Richardson developed the toolkit in collaboration with a neurodiverse team at the VPSC. The toolkit was informed by peer-reviewed research and extensive consultation with people with lived and professional experience. It provides actionable advice, such as how to improve communication, adapt recruitment processes, and design inclusive work environments.
This initiative responds to the significant challenges neurodivergent people face in gaining and maintaining employment, and a need among employers for educational resources. Many barriers, such as unclear position descriptions or onboarding procedures, can be addressed through simple changes that benefit all employees.
Hosted publicly and freely on the VPSC website, the toolkit is designed to meet the needs of both employers seeking to build their capacity to support neurodivergent staff and employees advocating for workplace adjustments. By equipping organisations with clear, actionable steps, the toolkit has the potential to foster more inclusive work environments across the public sector and beyond.
The Neurodiversity Employment Toolkit was published in November 2024 on the Victorian Public Sector Commission website.
Leading Team: Lisa Denney, Allan Illingworth, Aidan Craney, Glenn Bond
The UNDP’s Vaka Pasifika project works to facilitate accountable governance and the management of finances for development in Pacific Island countries. However, accountable governance and effective financial management needs to be grounded in an understanding of local dynamics and relationships, within which personal and political identities are often inseparable. Dr Lisa Denney and La Trobe’s Centre for Human Security and Social Change are providing the UNDP with six country-based case studies analysing how accountability is understood in each context; the power dynamics at play; the rules that shape local practice; and the consequent opportunities and constraints. This is being followed with a synthesis report that draws out the key findings about the political economy constraints for accountability in the Pacific Island countries studied.
Six case studies (Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia) have been delivered to the UNDP, with a synthesis report being finalized in early 2025. Following this research, the UNDP has established “Fellowship Schemes” in three Pacific countries (Tuvalu, Solomon Islands and Tonga), bringing together influential actors identified by the research (in the case of Tuvalu and Solomon Islands) to progress their approaches to accountability. The CHSSC is accompanying these Fellowship Schemes with action research to document how they operate, what they achieve, and what this tells us about how to progress accountability in the Pacific. Marine Destrez, Public Financial Management Program Manager for UNDP Pacific, attests that: “Thanks to the detailed research and the ability of the La Trobe team… we’re able to utilize the information for our targeted in-country engagements and we’ve just deployed our team for missions across the region to follow-up on the data and mappings.”
Leading Team: Kirsty Forsdike
It is an uncomfortable fact that gender-based violence occurs in community sports settings. A study led by La Trobe’s Assoc. Prof. Kirsty Forsdike with support from Sport & Recreation Victoria and in collaboration with Sports Focus uncovered the pressing need to raise awareness about behaviours in a sports context that players find disrespectful, inappropriate or harmful – from gender stereotyping and homophobia or transphobia through to instances of assault or abuse.
Five videos showing examples and effects of gender-based violence were developed in collaboration with community sports organisations in regional Victoria, with an emphasis on creating settings and content relevant for local audiences. The campaign was launched in November 2024, and the videos along with accompanying posters have been distributed by partner Sports Focus. The findings of the study have also been used to inform government guidelines, and Sport & Recreation Victoria have committed a further $100K to roll out the campaign.
Leading Team: Clare Wright
Since the 19th century, the Eureka Stockade – a defining moment in the history of Australian democracy – has been represented as an exclusively male affair, contributing to a narrative that has traditionally written women out of participation in Australian public life. This perception was challenged by La Trobe’s Professor Clare Wright in her prize-winning book The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka (2013). As a result, the past decade has seen growing recognition of women’s role in the Eureka rebellion, on the Victorian goldfields, and beyond. From the presentation of material in Ballarat’s Eureka Centre to quotation in Parliament, Wright’s counternarrative of a ‘heterosocial’ Eureka has gained national traction.
In a recent 2024 example, Ballarat-based poet Megan J. Riedl has created a one-woman show in dialogue with the work of Ellen Young, whose political verse was brought to light in Forgotten Rebels. “We tend to think of Eureka as a men’s rebellion”, Riedl comments, “but women like Ellen Young were present and using their own voices to question the status quo, and in doing so, breaking down censorship, and seeking agency for women.” Provoked by Wright’s scholarship, this shift in understanding has now become mainstream.