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Soft skills – which ones are important and how can universities teach them?
The Australian student voice on the soft skills needed for the future, and how universities can integrate these skills into their teaching This white paper reviews findings from a survey of Australian higher education students on which soft skills they believe to be the most important for future career success. It also consults eight academic […]

Protecting against the unintended consequences of social isolation
Social isolation, job losses and economic downturn, not to mention the prospect of lethal illness, will almost certainly be heightening anxiety for all of us. But for many Australians an extra danger – family violence – also lurks within the home and will be exacerbated by isolation or quarantine. Family violence is difficult to respond […]

Informing Tasmania’s response, recovery and post-COVID future
As in many things, Tasmania is experiencing COVID-19 in ways that differ from other states. We knew being an island could give us faster and tighter control of our borders, and we know our demographics make us more vulnerable – physically, socially and economically – to the virus. These differences are evident to those leading […]
COVID-19: Housing market opportunity for counter cyclical investment in social housing
Jacqueline De Vries, Data Analyst The full effect of Covid-19 on the Tasmanian economy will not be known for some time to come, but it is likely to induce a recession with a range of impacts on the housing market. If the construction industry remains an essential service and continues to operate through an economic […]

Reshaping the Lucky Country
Prepared by Dr Lisa Denny, Institute for Social Change, University of Tasmania The COVID-19 global pandemic has revealed an inconvenient truth for Australia; we have a national economy founded on consumption. In fact, it is both our societal values and underlying political ideologies which are geared to increasing consumption to grow our economy rather than […]

COVID-19: The long road to recovery must start now
Prepared by Dr Lisa Denny, Institute for Social Change, University of Tasmania To access all of the graphs, tables and footnotes, download COVID-19: The long road to recovery must start now (PDF 177KB). Less than three hours after Premier Peter Gutwein announced the effective closure of Tasmania’s borders in response to the global pandemic crisis from COVID-19, […]

Tasmanian Demographic Analysis SnapShot – January 2020
Prepared by Dr Lisa Denny, Institute for Social Change, University of Tasmania To access all of the graphs, tables and footnotes, download Tasmanian Demographic Analysis SnapShot – January 2020 (PDF 321KB). The January 2020 Tasmanian Demographic Analysis ShapShot provides an overview of quarterly Australian demographic statistics released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in December 2019 […]

December Tasmanian Demographic SnapShot
Tasmanian Demographic Analysis SnapShot – December 2019 Prepared by Dr Lisa Denny, Institute for the Study of Social Change, University of Tasmania To see all of the graphs, tables and footnotes associated with this SnapShot, please download a PDF version (220KB). The December 2019 Tasmanian Demographic Analysis SnapShot provides an overview of natural population change […]

Talking Point: Workforce polarisation Insight Report
This opinion piece by Institute for the Study of Social Change Research Fellow Dr Lisa Denny, first appeared in the Mercury newspaper on Monday 18 March. Tasmania is touted the ideal place to live, work, study and invest. While Tasmania’s economic performance is relatively strong and a growing number of migrants from interstate and beyond […]
Public invited to free lunchtime forum on social housing
Treating social housing as a form of essential infrastructure is the focus of a joint research paper released last week, featuring the University of Tasmania’s award-winning researcher Kathleen Flanagan. Dr Flanagan last week received the Federal Minister’s Award for Early Career Housing Researcher at the Australasian Housing Researchers Conference in Adelaide, where she provided an […]