Vision Statement

The Institute for Social Transformation Research: Expanding our capacity to understand and engage with our social, cultural and geo‐political environment. 

The University of Wollongong (UOW) is recognised for its research excellence and its leading role in developing research that crosses traditional disciplinary and institutional boundaries to engage with the opportunities and challenges presented by changing industrial, technological, physical and geopolitical environments.

 The Institute for Social Transformation Research (ISTR) brings together scholars who are at the cutting edge of creative and community‐engaged research in the humanities, creative arts and social sciences, with a shared focus on understanding the impact of these changes on the pace of social and cultural transformation in our region and across the globe. ISTR aims to build Australia’s capacity to understand and engage with the globalising forces that are increasingly technologically mediated, but that continue to be configured by spatial, economic and temporal constraints. The complexity of these global and local transformations cannot be addressed through narrow disciplinary paradigms. ISTR research is therefore cross‐disciplinary, practical and project based, involving collaboration across geographical locations, and drawing from disciplines such as politics, sociology, philosophy, cultural studies, literary studies, language and linguistics, creative arts, geography, media studies, history, anthropology, economics and law. 

ISTR researchers are currently engaged in or developing projects funded by the ARC and other key funding bodies in Australia and overseas. ISTR members provide intellectual leadership both within and beyond the University in the development of new projects, and are involved in the mentoring of Early‐Career staff and postgraduate student researchers to help guarantee the continuation of Australia’s intellectual capital into the future.