Transformative year for CQU's Social Impact Lab
Social impact is at the heart of CQUniversity.
For more than a decade, that impact has been supercharged as CQU has led socially innovative and inclusive change with students, staff and communities.
In 2025, the team driving the process unveiled a new name: CQU's Social Impact Lab.
As they wrap up their transformative year, Social Impact Lab Program Managers Steve Williams and Sara Brown share some big moments, across community-building, sustainable change, and social enterprise success stories.
What was your highlight of 2025?
It’s hard to choose just one! From our attendance at the Social Impact Summit in Sydney, to delivering workshops with the Emerald community as part of the Tell Me Your Story project, to winning a grant to support neurodivergent nursing students in a co-design process.
But if we had to choose, wrapping up the Q-SEED Youth project with a final visit to Townsville for two days of workshops with young people was incredible. Working with the same group of young people over the past 18 months and seeing how they have grown their confidence, and made huge changes to their lives, has been hugely rewarding.
Your team became the Social Impact Lab in 2025 (formerly the Office of Social Innovation), what does the new name mean to you?
The new name helps us take social innovation principles, and really focus on how we practice for social impact. Changing our name, and some of the ways we work, has really opened up our internal networks: we are so lucky to be collaborating with so many different parts of CQU on real social impact.
We are working with the School of Business and Law, the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, the School of Health, Medical and Applied Sciences, the School of Education and the Arts, our Wellbeing team and the Accessibility and Equity team. It’s been great getting to work on projects making a real difference in the community and with such passionate CQU staff!
Can you share an unexpected impact the team achieved?
Honestly, it's been watching young people and community members shift from seeing themselves as 'participants', to recognising themselves as designers of change. We often go into social design work focused on outcomes like better programs, stronger partnerships, and practical solutions for regional and remote communities. What we can’t fully anticipate is the quiet, powerful confidence that emerges throughout a co-design process, whether it's an 18-month process like Q-SEED, or a one-off event in Emerald, or as part of the Regional Enablers Program in Gladstone.
Throughout 2025 we’ve seen so many young people – many of whom have felt unheard or marginalised – begin to trust their own ideas, challenge systems, and lead conversations. It’s had such a big impact on our work and outcomes for the communities we are working in, but also helps remind us: the true value of the work we do in the Social Impact Lab!
What was the best connection made?
This year we co-founded a Social Design Community of Practice for practitioners working in Queensland. It’s been great connecting with and learning from some excellent minds in the field including Jessica Cheers and Jeremey Kerr, authors of one of our favourite books The Art of Co-Design.
What are you most excited for in 2026?
From February, we'll be working with neurodivergent Nursing students to co-design a content series, that will better support students entering the workplace. We're also supporting a regional Queensland school with the development of a Social Work in Schools project with CQU students, co-designing the next iteration of the iChange mircocredential, and wrapping up the Q-SEED project with a co-created Theory of Change on social and local procurement with Townsville. It’s shaping up to be an exciting and jam-packed 2026!
The Social Impact Lab helps clients and community partners solve complex problems, through co-design, capacity-building and leadership development.
CQUniversity is Australia’s only university certified as a social enterprise. This means that when you procure quality goods and services from CQU, you are changing lives and buying social impact in the same transaction.
