The Centre for Regenerating Futures

About the Centre 

We live in unprecedented times with the 4th industrial revolution, the 6th mass extinction, global pandemics, and climate crises impacting all beings. The Centre for Regenerating Futures members are responding through aligning and emerging research practices and innovations to engage in transdisciplinary research that will mitigate, educate, and support adaptation to these socio-ecological challenges. 

The Centre facilitates connections and fosters collaboration between researchers who share a commitment to act through research in response to urgent global challenges. Through robust, active, participatory, intergenerational research that is methodologically agile, the Centre enables distinctive research practices that harness and develop existing and emerging research strengths that will generate impacts that are socially just and enable self and planetary well-being. 

The Centre represents an alignment of research from across all three Schools in the Faculty of Arts & Education and the National Indigenous Knowledges Education Research Innovation (NIKERI) Institute. The Centre will draw on existing and emerging research strengths to generate research engagement and impact that will enable further research innovations and impacts through partnership with internal and external allied organisatons. 

The Centre brokers and supports emerging transdisciplinary research that opens new and innovative research enactments as researchers develop relationships across the faculty disciplines.

Key Imperatives 

The Centre for Regenerating Futures has emerged with key research imperatives that frame our research ecology. The Centre has two key research imperatives that are universally significant and inextricably linked. 

We seek to address research questions or problems related to: 

  • Addressing Anthropocene Challenges 
  • Decolonising Knowledges and Practice

A key Centre practice imperative acknowledges that we are establishing cross-faculty relationships, often for the first time.

Research Capacity Building Strategies 

  • On Country Meetings and Events -dedicated and located opportunities to forge researcher relationships. 
  • Re-Generator – A monthly commitment to quarantine time (2-3 hours) to regenerate our research capacity through learning with Centre members. 
  • Futures Forums – monthly seminar series to showcase strand research outputs and initiate future cross-strand collaborations.
  • Research Enabler – Targeted research support scheme to provide dedicated assistance to Centre projects.
  • Centre Media Production – profile researchers and projects (using strategies such as video and graphically designed communications from the Research Enabler) and with support from Deakin media.
  • The Conversation Connection – Commitment to publish conversation articles. We will develop strategies to support members to engage in this public intellectual space.
  • Centre Podcast Series – design and develop a series focussing on member research profiles and successes.
  • Professional Connections – Commitment to professional journals and associations to build research/researcher reputation in professional spheres.
  • Strand Focussed Activities- to establish the relationships within the strand,develop research innovations, forging and strengthening connections with allied organisations, within each strand (all members).