Breaking the cycle together

Australia is facing a national emergency in domestic and gendered-based violence. Despite sustained attention and reform efforts, the prevalence of violence against women and children has not significantly declined.  
 
Philanthropic support has enabled UTS to bring in two research leaders to tackle this critical issue. Professor Anne Summers AO and Industry Professor Jess Hill are among Australia’s preeminent voices in the field of domestic and family violence.  
 
Collectively, their work has been amplifying the extent and consequences of these often-hidden forms of violence, which negatively impact women and children, communities and the economy. Through the production and strategic communication of evidence, Dr Summers and Ms Hill are driving crucial policy and practice change. 

Dr Summers is Professor of Domestic and Family Violence at the UTS Business School and one of Australia’s leading women’s rights advocates. She has produced two groundbreaking research reports that reveal the true scale of domestic violence in Australia and its impact on women’s employment, education and income.  
 
Her final report, a plan for a new longitudinal study on how to better to understand and therefore prevent domestic violence, was published earlier in March.  
 
Ms Hill is an award-winning investigative journalist and author who joined UTS in 2024 as Industry Professor. Working across the UTS Business School and the Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion, she is advancing under-utilised strategies for preventing gendered violence, with research focused on safer parenting order decisions in family violence cases.  
 
But Dr Summers and Ms Hill aren’t working alone.  
 
Dr Summers has been supported by the Paul Ramsay Foundation (PRF) and the Snow Foundation. Ms Hill’s work is enabled by a fellowship co-funded by the Wilson Foundation.  
 
This philanthropic support is an impact multiplie, enabling innovative research and building capacity for advocacy, education and reform that aims to break the cycle of violence for future generations.  
 

And the time for action is now: data released in 2021-22 showed that more than one in four women have experienced family and domestic violence since the age of 15. Together, UTS and its philanthropic patrons are building the foundations for a safer world. 
 
Says PRF CEO Professor Kristy Muir:   
 
“The long-term impacts of domestic and family violence are well documented. Dedicated research is essential to ensure these impacts are fully understood and translated into meaningful policy and practice change. PRF is proud to invest strongly in family stability, including supporting UTS and Dr Summers in advancing this important work.” 
 
Professor Sara Denize, Interim Dean of the UTS Business School, adds; “UTS is deeply committed to research that confronts society’s most urgent challenges, including the prevention of domestic and gendered-based violence. This work reflects our focus on impactful, evidence-based research that informs policy, shapes practice and delivers meaningful change for our community.”