Co-leads for the deep Sector Engagement in Health group, Professor Susan Morton, Professor Hui Chen and Dr. Kathleen Peters, joined the Research Café to explain how they will collaborate differently to solve community and stakeholder health issues.
deep Sector Engagement in Health
“We're working together differently to understand more about the needs of our communities and stakeholders. Then we can align those needs to the strengths that UTS has in the research space,” epidemiologist Professor Susan Morton explained.
Susan said that UTS has numerous strengths in health research and teaching and has earned a reputation for putting people first.
“At UTS we always take a person-centred approach in our health research to better address issues that have been persistent over decades,” she said.
“We realise that we need a new way of doing things, which doesn't just mean us understanding what we do, but a deeper understanding what the changing and future needs of our stakeholders are, by listening to the people who live with the problems.”
At UTS we always take a person-centred approach in our health research to better address issues that have been persistent over decades.
Navigating complexity
In its first stage of discovery, the deep Sector Engagement in Health group has been analysing the university’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
“The health sector that we will engage with is really complex and very siloed in terms of the way it operates, the way it's funded and the way that people who have health issues need to engage with it,” Susan said
The group is interested in addressing the journey through the health ecosystem by taking a person-centred approach, an area in which Susan said UTS plays extremely well, despite not having its own clinical school.
The health sector that we will engage with is really complex and very siloed in terms of the way it operates, the way it's funded and the way that people who have health issues need to engage with it.
“We may not have our own clinical school, but we have many health professionals that come through UTS. We also have strong connections to communities, to public health networks and other allied health groups. With dSE, we want to bring all those groups together,” she said.
Susan said that the university’s competitive advantage lies in its co-design approach when offering research solutions to the problems of external stakeholders.
“We would love to have a bigger working group for dSE in Health, so I welcome all those like-minded researchers to join us and figure out how to work differently and work together differently.”
Get involved
Express your interest in joining the DSE in Health group by completing the EOI form.
Connect with the DSE co-leads for Health:
- Professor Susan Morton, an epidemiologist and Public Health Physician who is the Director for Insight – the UTS Research Institute for Innovative Solutions for Wellbeing and Health.
- Dr Kathleen Peters, the Health Sector Business Development Strategic Lead at UTS.
- Professor Hui Chen, Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Science who has a background in dementia and metabolic diseases.
About Deep Sector Engagement at UTS
The dSE initiative is set to transform how UTS researchers and educators engage with the various industry sectors in which we have cross-disciplinary research expertise.
Through an externally framed approach, dSE will enable greater understanding of how a sector operates and the areas in which UTS and its partners can co-create the most value.
There are currently four different sectors identified within the dSE initiative: Climate, Agriculture and Horticulture, Health and Med Tech, and Defence and Space.
What’s next?
- Reach out to the team via email to see how you can get involved. Susan Morton, Kathleen Peters, Hui Chen
- Learn more about the UTS Deep Sector Engagement strategy.