Education for Social Impact Network: Building a tertiary education design alliance

21st century education requires that we equip students with future-ready skills such as learner agency, a broad set of knowledge, skills, attitudes and values, and competencies to transform society and shape the future through reflective practice (OECD, 2018). University students today are part of a generation of learners with an “overarching practicality and civic focus … significant to their generation” (Sollohub, 2019, p. 13). Further, it is essential that emerging and future 21st century learners are provided with authentic learning experiences that simulate real-world problems (Trilling & Fadel, p. 31). The OECD (2018) Education 2030 vision for the future of education opens with the idea that “the future is uncertain and we cannot predict it”, and that “in the face of an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world, education can make the difference as to whether people embrace the challenges they are confronted with or whether they are defeated by them. These sentiments are echoed in the UNESCO Commission on Education for the 21st Century, Delors (1996) states that, “in confronting the many challenges that the future holds in store, humankind sees education as an indispensable asset in its attempt to attain the ideals of peace, freedom and social justice” (p. 13). Increasingly, designers from all disciplines are expected to act as drivers of positive social change. To prepare our design graduates to be agents of change QUT’s School of Design is pioneering a new unit called Impact Lab 2: People to its first-year cohort of over 600 students from all seven design disciplines. The unit is the second in a suite of four transdisciplinary Impact Lab units. Through Impact Lab 2, the formation of six direct community partnerships enables students to embrace multifaceted and complex social challenges such as teenage pregnancy and education, mental health and suicide prevention in the construction industry, teenage alcohol and drug abuse, rural youth support, homelessness, and high-needs disability. The program involves the creation of innovative team-based design propositions to advance wellbeing in communities and improve the lives of the people who live in them. Similarly, Monash University’s Department of Design Research Labs are impacting design and community organisations, via an overarching commitment to sustainability and equality. XYX Lab (Gender and Place) is examining how the design of public space can shape human experiences and prevent gender-based inequality. Mobility Design Lab is engaging with a ‘post-car’ future of transport that is sustainable, accessible and equitable. Emerging Technology Research Lab is focused on the human and environmental impact of cascading technological change; while Design Health Collab is concerned with how design intervenes in the future of our wellbeing, be it via designed artefacts, infrastructure, patient experience or behavior change. In line with the DRS20 sub-theme of IMPACT, this workshop aims to explore the potential for an Australia-wide, multi-university, social impact entrepreneurial collective – a driver for creating transformative change for good through collaboration and co-creation. The workshop will facilitate information-sharing and participant interaction with a view to explore the potential of a national Education for Social Impact Network. It is anticipated that this network will grow over time according to an Open Innovation Network model, enabling strategic partnerships across academia and industry that focus on positive community impact