The Sydney Policy Lab only works if it's everyone's Lab. We welcome big ideas and questions from people across all walks of life. You can get in touch with the team for advice about your collaborative project.
Working alongside colleagues from our University and from across the Group of Eight in the Roadmap to Recovery Taskforce, Lab researchers contributed to a national taskforce on how Australia could best plan for recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
A collection of NSW community sector peak organisations commissioned the Lab to support the creation of a shared agenda and vision of commissioning as a way to design and deliver human services. Together, Lab researchers and peak leaders reshaped understandings of commissioning away from a search for policy blueprints that could be transplanted directly from other places and towards a framework for commissioning ‘experiments’ committed to putting relationships first, letting communities lead, embedding learning and investing in people.
The Lab was commissioned by the City of Sydney to design a wholly new set of inequality indicators to help the City direct its policy and programs in advance of its new 2050 strategy. We worked with researchers from across the University, as well as with world-leading researchers in New York and London. We developed measures across a host of domains – from public participation to employment – and demographics – from age to income group. Download the report here (pdf, 4.1MB).
The Lab partnered with Wayside to bring the flagship conference, Side by Side, to the University of Sydney. Open to people from all walks of life, the conference brought together researchers, practitioners and those with lived experience of daily inequalities to answer the question: how can we create a fair and equitable society? Keynote speakers included former Prime Minister of Australia, Malcolm Turnbull and Harvard Professor Danielle Allen.
The Lab worked with Guardian Australia and their spokespeople living at the sharp end of inequality in Australia. Lab researchers worked with five spokespeople living below the poverty line to frame the questions they really wanted politicians from all parties to answer ahead of Australia’s Federal Election in 2019.
The Lab partnered with Multicultural NSW and the NSW Coordinator General for Refugee Resettlement to support them with their efforts to seeks to include young people from refugee and migrant backgrounds in the process of decision making about settlement services policy in NSW.
Addison Road Community Organisation
Australia New-Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG)
Australian and New Zealand Third Sector Research
Australian Council of Social Services
Australian Department of Social Services
Australian Manufacturing Workers Union Geelong
Australian Progress
Belmont Scouts
Benevolent Society
Brotherhood of St Laurence
Business Council of Cooperatives and Mutuals
Carers NSW
Centre for Public Impact
City of Sydney
Climate Justice Union
Cloverdale Community Centre
Collaborate for Impact
Committee for Sydney
Domestic Violence NSW
Dusseldorp Forum
Electrical Trades Union Queensland
Fams
Geelong Sustainability
Geelong Trades Hall
GetUp!
Guardian Australia
Herbert Smith Freehills
Homelessness NSW
Jesuit Social Services
Just Reinvest NSW
Law Society of NSW
Local Community Services Association
Maranguka Community Hub
Mission Australia
Multicultural NSW Coordinator General for Settlement
Museum of Contemporary Art
Muslim Women Australia
Norlane Community Centre
NSW Council of Social Services
NSW Department of Education and Training
NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet
Oz International Student Hub
Paul Ramsay Foundation
Public Purpose
Purpose Asia Pacific
Queensland Community Alliance
Queensland Conservation Council
Queensland Unions
Rail Tram and Bus Union (Gladstone)
Reset Australia
Rosewall Community Centre
Settlement Services International
Shelter NSW
Shine for Kids
St Bernard’s Catholic Church
Sweltering Cities
Sydney Alliance
Sydney Community Forum
Sydney Symphony Orchestra
The Australian Centre for Social Innovation
The Australian Conservation Foundation
The Centre for Volunteering
The Constellation project
Tomorrow movement
United Workers Union
Uniting Church in Australia Synod of Victoria and Tasmania
Victorian Trades Hall Council
Wayside Chapel
Wesley Mission
Y Foundations
Youth Action