Community members, groups and agencies have been called on to ‘take ownership' of CQU's new Healthy Communities initiative to ensure it is relevant to their needs.

That is according to Associate Professor Stewart Lockie who addressed today's (Nov 14) launch seminar for the research flagship in front of around 80 participants.

Flagship leaders (from left) Kevin Ronan, Sandra Taylor, Brenda Happell, Jennelle Kyd, Stewart Lockie and Kerry Mummery

Dr Lockie pointed out the University already has significant health-related research activity, a range of existing groups working in relevant areas and ongoing community partnerships.

He said the new initiative was an opportunity to pool resources and pull together all the existing projects related to community health and well-being, to build a bigger and more collaborative enterprise.

"The intent is to invest in our capacity," he said.

"The keywords are a focus on informing, monitoring and evaluating programs and interventions aimed at community health and wellbeing."

"We need to know what sort of difference we're making and better understand some of the linkages."

Pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor Jennelle Kyd officially launched the flagship, congratulated those involved in implementing the initiative and welcomed guests from within the University and from a wide range of community agencies.

She said this was part of a plan of 3 major flagship areas to focus the research efforts of the University, along with Resourcing Queensland and Intercultural Education Institute.

"Part of the University's investment is to build the capacity of these research areas ... it has quarantined the money to invest and grow the research capacity," she said.

"It is part of our ability to contribute to our region and the significant questions that have to be addressed in our region; it is very important as part of our national profile and as part of our international reputation.

Stewart Lockie at the launch

"It is important in terms of attracting and engaging academics of quality and calibre to complement the quality academics we already have here. It's an important part of the University's ability to grow its business in teaching and learning also.

"Each of the flagships has an investment portfolio that is investing not so much in the projects that these flagships undertake but into the capacity to attract funding for the projects ... it's the intellectual capacity, it's the resources they need to deliver on the research that many of these researchers do with you as part of the community and with other stakeholders around Australia.

"Each of these flagships is underpinned by a number of centres and strong research groupings. They are not starting from scratch. We have not abolished the centres that have done fantastic work over a period of time.

"What we have done is allow them to also grow in capacity by linking in a much more tangible way with other researchers in complementary areas and thematically linking those by areas that actually address issues associated with the health of our communities."

During the launch event, Professor Brenda Happell spoke about Mental and Psychosocial research, Professor Kerry Mummery spoke about Lifestyle, Behaviour and Environment research, Associate Professor Sandra Taylor spoke on Human Services and Community Safety research and Professor Kevin Ronan addressed the cross-program strategy.

Dr Lockie also introduced the role of Associate Professor Lee Di Milia and Dr Jim Douglas in coordinating the flagship's crucial communications strategy - in terms of both outgoing results and incoming feedback.

Kevin Ronan addresses the launch

CQU Healthy Communities represents a new research initiative that builds upon the success of projects such as 10,000 Steps as well as links forged through the Regional Health Research Alliance.

Apart from the launch, Wednesday's event communicated outcomes from recent and existing research and invited feedback and participation in setting the agenda for health and well-being research in the Central Queensland region.

"CQU Healthy Communities represents a multidisciplinary and cross-faculty research philosophy. Our focus is on outcomes-based research that makes a real difference to peoples' lives. We can only achieve this by forging strong relationships with relevant community, government, industry and university partners," Dr Lockie said.

Sandra Taylor greets guests
Visitors mingled with staff afterwards
Andrew Fenning and Mitch Duncan
Kerry Walsh and Dawn Hay at the launch