Hopkins Meet and Mingle to celebrate the end of 2024

The Hopkins Centre had a great Meet and Mingle event on Thursday 21 November 2024, celebrating the end of the year highlights with 30 members in attendance. The evening bought together members to meet, mingle and network, in exploring bold ideas and better solutions for the future through collaborative and responsive research. 

Professor Tim Geraghty opened the evening, thanking everyone for their hard work in 2024 and sharing key highlights and achievements from the year.

• Recognised key awards announced this year, from awarding Hopkins Patron Mr Kevin Cocks AM. D.Univ with a ‘Distinguished Service Award’ and honouring Professor Elizabeth Kendall AM, awarded a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) and Hopkins Ambassador, Belinda Adams OAM, a recipient of the Medal of the Order (OAM). 
• Recently had a very successful BIBS24 symposium event in October and we thank everyone for being involved and attending. This was our eighth annual symposium, and we are proud to share that these symposiums to date, have had over 193 speakers involved, 1874 attendees and 30 sponsors supporting the event over the last 8 years.
• Announced 8 new seed grants, which brings the total to 42 interdisciplinary seed grants awarded, completed or in process. We are excited to see the outcomes and impact of these research grants next year.
• Awarded four new clinical fellowships this year, with one long term fellowship and three short-term ‘Bright Sparks’ fellowships. A total of 12 Hopkins clinical fellowships awarded to date.
• Hopkins researchers are making an international impact working with world rehabilitation alliance, hosted by the World Health organization (WHO), in supporting the implementation of the rehabilitation 2030 initiative. Promoting public awareness of the importance of Health Policy and Systems Research for Rehabilitation.
• Hopkins researchers and members are well up past 1200 research publications since Hopkins started in 2017, with over 150 research publications this year so far too!

       

Professor Tamara Ownsworth spoke about the importance of co-design research and working with people with lived experience. We were delighted to hear from three speakers who showcased citizen engagement in research at a local, national and international level:

• International Nature Award winner, Dr Kelsey Chapman, provided an update on the inclusive research being undertaken by The Dignity Project, sharing next steps for the project and plans for future impact. 
• We enjoyed and participated in a demonstration of drumming and movement, by Belinda Adams OAM and the NeuroRhythm project. Funded by The Heart Foundation, NeuroRhythm brings together the elements of Djembe drumming and free dance movement to engage people living with a brain injury to express themselves and re-inhabit their bodies post injury. 
• It was also an honour to have Griffith University PhD Student, Danielle Pretty, talk about the DAN-CER (Dance as an Adjunct therapy for Neurological rehabilitation – Creative Enrichment for Recovery) Project. Danielle shared about her experience with the codesign process in developing the DAN-CER program and insights from the pilot program in practice.
  
  

         

 

We look forward to hearing more about these projects and citizen engagement in the next coming months! 

Thank you again for those that attended this event or have attended and participated in other Hopkins events throughout the year. We look forward to continuing to work with you in 2025, in exploring bold ideas that can translate into better solutions for people with disability. 

We look forward to seeing you at our future The Hopkins Centre events, which you can find all the details for on the Events page of our website.