About the UTS Social Impact Framework

Amy to talk about uh work that's going on on the social impact framework. And for those of you who've been around for a little while will know that probably must be coming up for nearly 10 years ago um the um we we undertook a series of work um to look at how we could capture in a way that was meaningful both for ourselves and for external stakeholders the actual impact that the university was having beyond the traditional metrics we use around number of graduates and their employment and the amount of research that we do and so forth. Could we articulate uh in a way that was meaningful uh the uh the impact that we have on our communities and w more widely given that we have a long-standing commitment to social impact and our work actually having benefit um this was a particularly um uh insightful thing to do. I've just come back from discussions in uh uh amongst a number of universities around the world around the concept that's emerging uh in the UK um and uh and wider in Europe around what what a fourth generation university might look like which is interesting because that's the narrative around a university that's engaged with its community which UTS actually is in a very strong and meaningful way um and what would be an indicator of success. So they're almost having the conversation that we started 10 years ago, but 10 years is 10 years ago. Uh and so um even though it's been a tough time and a tough couple of years in many ways, um many things going on that have distracted us, um many people have come together, uh across our community, uh to think about is this still contemporary? Does it deliver the outcome that we want it to? Uh does it speak to us and to our external stakeholders? Um, and so a little while ago I asked Amy and the Center for Social Justice and Inclusion to have another look at it. Let's have a look and see if this is still serving the purpose that we want it to. Um, because it is inspiring. It is uh something we're passionate about. It's something that makes a difference for us and for our u stakeholders. Um, and it can demonstrate very significantly the value that the university has on its communities. So, um, uh, Amy, I'll I'll pass over to you to, um, uh, to take us through where we're at. Yeah, thanks so much, Andrew. And, um, look, I'm delighted to have 10 15 minutes to talk to you all today uh, about this work. So, Andrew was almost correct with 10 years, 2017. I want you to take yourselves back to 2017. So UTS was ranked 193rd in the QS world university rankings. Construction commenced on building two in 2017 and UTS launched the first university social impact framework in Australia and you can see it on the slide uh which is pretty groundbreaking right it was comprised of six domains and three preconditions and the content is fantastic. So it covers student equity, student agency and social responsibility, support for staff to have social impact, advocacy and thought leadership. All things we care really deeply about as an institution, but as you can see, really pretty complicated. In 2022, we launched social impact framework digital dashboards, which were designed so that all staff and students could access them and see how UTS was progressing. And again a really great idea but gaps in the data sets and other challenges meant that the level of engagement with the dashboards was really low. So fast forward a few years and the decision was made to review the

so we undertook this review as Andrew explained we reached out to colleagues right across UTS and the review confirmed a number of things. First and foremost um and the reason I get out of bed every morning, social justice remains a really high priority for the UTS community. We heard this from professional staff, from academic staff in every faculty in every division. Um the fact that univers the fact that UTS um drives social justice outcomes is incredibly important to us. Other things the review confirmed though was that awareness of the CIF is is really low. The categories of impact don't necessarily ma match our perceived strengths and people loved the idea but not the actual product. So at that point given that feedback a decision was made to develop a new model.

So again, CSJI was tasked with this and we set up an advisory committee of academic and professional staff from across the university as well as undergraduate and post-graduate students. We carried out dozens of in-depth one-on-one interviews with staff and students. We held student focus groups. Uh we ran a survey of for staff with hundreds of responses. and that then led to the development of draft models uh that were tested through rounds of consultations and focus groups and meetings across UTS. So just an example of some of the groups um that we spoke to, we spoke to the student council liaison group. We presented to the students association. We sought feedback from faculty social justice and inclusion committees. We got feedback from faculty research engagement managers, multiple f focus groups for professional staff from across the university. We spoke to the disability research network, the indigenous leadership network. And I really want to thank and pay tribute to everyone who engaged with us through that process. Hopefully you will all see your work reflected in the draft model. So what are we here and what have we changed? I mean, first of all, it was really clear that many of the aspects of social impact that people thought were most important at UTS were not actually included in the original SIF and needed to be more visible. So things like First Nations self-determination, research into environment and sustainability, the responsible use of technology, topics around health and community. Many of the people we consulted and talked to saw the CIF as really relating to the work of the center for social justice and inclusion rather than themselves and the collective efforts of the whole university. So the new model's really been designed with this in mind so that everyone can hopefully see themselves reflected within it. It's also designed to make it easier for you to understand uh and see the alignment of the SIF with other really key university strategies. And then finally, it's designed to be bold and ambitious. You know, we are a public inst institution with social justice in our DNA, and we need ways to keep ourselves accountable for this. So, the big reveal, this is not the model yet, but this is an overview of those six focus areas. Indigenous self-determination, equity and inclusion, civic responsibility and institutional integrity, healthy communities, environmental sustainability, and responsible use of technology. What we've done is then introduce four core areas of activity to really help people situate their work in the SE. So what we hope is that people can see how to categorize the work that contributes to social impact for both planning and reporting. So you can see we've got research and knowledge exchange which aligns with the knowledge exchange framework and research translation as well as things like thought leadership contribution many of you make to public debates policy influence and so on. Got teaching and learning which includes aspects of the curriculum that relate to the priority areas. So for example, our indigenous graduate attributes, our incurriculum projects um and subjects with engineers without borders, the shopfront program that part partners students with community organizations and things like our inclusive teaching practices. The student life category includes student services, student organizations, things like volunteering programs such as Soul and Brennan. So essentially anything outside of the classroom and then the organization and staff life category absolutely critical and that includes the things that are done by the institution uh to drive social justice outcomes. So things like measures to address the gender pay gap which still persists our cultural diversity and anti-racism work, disability accessibility and the sustainability of our campus. So here you can see the diagram bringing together these two aspects. So the six priority areas, the four core activities coming together with the mission that UTS drives transformative social change.

Hopefully um you'll see it's a much simpler reflection of what's important to our community and the core ways we contribute to driving social uh positive social change. So this is just the diagram representing the draft SIF but when you go online which I really hope you will you can access a full report which contains quite a lot more detail and descriptions uh under each focus area. And I want to stress this is a draft. What I'm will leave you with today is a request for feedback and there'll be further consultations over the coming months with an aim of finalizing this later in the year. So how to use it? So as a road map, the SIF can be used as a tool for planning at an institutional, local and even individual level. So within the focus areas, the aim is that faculties, divisions, work areas can set goals and targets to create social impact. So the center for social justice and inclusion will provide support for this. But the idea is that the decision making on where to focus will be local as a reporting framework. The SIF is a tool that helps to collect information and tell the many stories of social impact from within the university. So as the evidence collects, we'll be able to see where we have impact and where the gaps might be. Different parts of the university might learn and take inspiration from one another, build collaborations to scale initiatives, and communicate to the wider world about how UTS's commitment to social justice is actually actioned. This includes impact that is made on a local, national, and global level. We want this to be the vehicle through which we tell our social impact story to our partners. So, government, industry, community, students, donors, the research community. We want this to help really bring to life the incredible impact so many of you have every day.

So, next steps, as I said before, we want your feedback. This is a draft and many of you have been involved in its creation, but this is an incredible opportunity I think to engage our whole community and we're really keen to hear what you think. Pending feedback received, the idea is that we'll finalize this and officially officially launch it later in the year and then beginning with the faculty of design and society, uh CSJI will work progressively with faculties and divisions to develop the CF as both a planning and reporting tool. So we'll develop case studies and examples to show how the SIF can be used to demonstrate impact drawing on the activity and focus areas. And we'll also use obviously data driven measures. Um development of the evaluation and reporting mechanisms will also include incorporating an indigenousled impact measurement framework um which is a really exciting project uh being led by the provice chancellor indigenous leadership and engagement. Um it is my pleasure to now introduce uh Dr. from Leila Kaja Jin um who'll join me and provide uh an academic perspective on the new SIF uh and how it might be utilized. Um Leila, you were involved in the consultation for this process. Can you introduce yourself, tell us what you do, and then just talk a little bit about um yeah, your part in this project? Thanks Amy for having me. Um my work sits at the intersection of social sustainability, social development and impact and especially look at policies, structures and norms that shape and reproduce gender equity and inclusion outcomes in areas like leadership in sport in STEM fields. So social impact and how we understand it, how we articulate it is really central to my work. and tell us about I mean we we did identify you obviously as a key expert we wanted to engage and you're one of many people with expertise in social impact the measuring of it can you tell us tell or tell the community a little bit about how you're engaged you have used the previous model in fact I think you've even taught the previous model talk to us a little bit about that definitely I did participate in the social impact framework um the interview consultation uh with the team from social justice and inclusion um I and I have used you're right I have used the previous framework as well uh I found it to be very sophisticated very well considered but I'd say that uh which I shared with the with the uh team as well I'd say that it's even for someone like me who's been working in the social impact space uh I found it a bit challenging to navigate and apply it to my work and I think that that's worth flagging because uh if that's my experience I'd imagine that it's even harder for colleagues that are coming from other disciplines um for instance engineering and science who might not be directly working in this space uh for them it might be harder to navigate and engage with the framework and to see how their work actually relates to it and I do remember having conversation with colleagues um and I specifically um mentioned um engineering because I remember having conversations with them saying that you know they felt that their work didn't fit into the social impact framework but when we talked it through uh it clearly did so I think um the issue is not about the framework itself it's more about whether people can recognize their work when they look at the the framework or how easy it is for people to to see where their work fit uh with the model that they have in in our hand and I yeah I mean that um really aligns with the feedback we heard right that it was a fantastic instrument but um difficult to use uh and then yeah whole sways of our community didn't really see themselves in it and I think that was part of the challenge with it having been associated so closely with the center of social justice and inclusion which is an incredible asset to UTS, but the CIF was always intended to be something that resonated right across um our community. So, I think that was a real barrier uh that we did hear again and again and which has led to um this attempt to create something a bit more simple. So, you fed into that development. Um can you talk a little bit about um you know your sense of the new model? I mean, obviously it's not going to come as a surprise to people that you think it's pretty good, but can you talk a little bit about that and I guess also how you how do how will you use it? You're you know, you're an academic in a really key area of the university. Talk to us a little bit about how you would use it. Yeah, definitely. I think that looking at the new model, it's definitely simpler in a in a very positive way as you said in in when you were talking through the slides. Um I would say that it has a kind of elegant simplicity into it and it retains the sophistication of the old model. uh but it's easier to understand. It's easier to engage with and I think that the way that the core activities and focus areas are structured. It's very helpful with you know easier navigations and uh helps with quickly seeing where your work fits in. And I'd say that the scope al is also much broader than than the previous one. The previous one were mostly quite narrowly focused on equity and inclusion and civic participation where my work fit into that. But I think that with the new model um it also brings the areas that are al aligned with the UTS core and long-term strategies like indigenous self-determination, healthy communities, environmental sustainabilities, responsible use of technologies. And I think that these are all very much relevant and current topics that we deal with uh in our educational institution. And I think that this broader scope makes it much easier for people to see their work reflected in the framework. Um as well um as per my work, I think that um you know, as I mentioned, it's my I'm currently working on um projects that are mostly about social impact in communities. Uh, for example, one of them is about career development of culturally and racially marginalized women staff at UTS, which is relevant to the anti-racism strategies and span across research, knowledge, and uh, knowledge exchange and organizational work. And with the new model, it's easy for me to see um, you know, how it fits across different core activities and link them together with the focus area. and it's much easier to articulate and explain the full scope of my work as well. Yeah, thank you. Um I I think it is also I should tell um our audience that you have also seen the longer report. So when Leila is talking about the level of sophistication, please rest assured it is not just the diagram you can all see, but later hopefully many of you will go online and digest that longer awesome report that really gives meat uh to these focus areas and core activities. I do um I do want to acknowledge the risks uh and the new model I think is is is simple. It's an improvement in many respects but I think obviously there is a real challenge now with adoption. So um given current workloads this has to be genuinely helpful for people to showcase their work and their impact rather than another task or a reporting burden. And I do really I really want to assure people that we we have done a lot of work and designed a lot of the things that sit behind this model to take account of that. We really want this to be a way to capture and articulate your impact rather than impose yet another reporting burden. So to me that's that's the that's the key risk and I think that's why we're so keen um to pilot and trial some things with the faculty of design and society for example um and then move through other parts of the universities but can you speak to that from your perspective Ila like how how how do we mitigate some of those risks that we've you know that we've experienced in the past and the risk going forward that um yeah we don't see wide adoption of the framework. Yeah, absolutely. I think that you know you you're right in terms of saying that you know one of the risks uh with something like this is that people might see it as an extra work on you know another thing being asked on on top of everything else that people are already doing. Um but I think that it's very important as you mentioned that to to see the framework and position it as a tool and I think that the key reframe for us is that you know it's not about creating a new work. It's about helping um to tell a story of the work that we're already doing. And uh that's especially valuable for disciplines or areas that might, you know, where people are doing genuinely impactful work, but they're not used to apply social impact um language or terms when they're talking about the effect of their work on people and communities. And I think that it's um it's also very helpful in terms of you know aligning with where funding is heading. I think that impact statement everyone agrees that are more increasingly expected in in grant applications for instance and also uh support promotion application and pathways too. So I think that the core um the core idea is that um to use the framework as a tool uh for building ongoing record of impact you know as we go and as we carry on u the work that we're already doing in this space. Dr. Leila Kchinad, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it and I really wanted to bring another voice into this conversation. Right. and someone who's been part of this process. So, thank you. Um I am going to leave you all um with a request uh to go online. You can see um details about that uh on the slide. Tell us what you think. Reach out reach out to CSJI. Um and there's an email address that we're keen for people to use. Uh, tell us tell us um if you think things are missing, tell us what you like about it. Tell us give us clues about how you might use it. Talk to us if you want to be um an early adopter. Um we'd love to have a conversation with you. And look, I really appreciate your time um today. Thanks so much.

Thanks, uh Amy. And I think