Professor Peter Shergold, Macquarie Group Foundation Professor, welcomed the University of Western Australia to CSI. “The partnership to establish the Centre for Social Impact (WA) in the business school at UWA provides a genuinely national focus for our activities. UWA will bring particular expertise in the areas of business ethics and sustainability. They are also taking a lead more recently in examining how to improve the effectiveness and capacity of WA’s philanthropic sector.
“The Centre for Social Impact has established itself as a powerful voice in teaching, research and public engagement in generating social innovation. Western Australia is in an enviable position to lead a social innovation agenda,” UWA Vice-Chancellor Professor Alan Robson said.
CSI (WA) will be guided by an advisory council chaired by UWA Chancellor and chairman of NAB and Woodside, Dr Michael Chaney AO.
“The outstanding economic opportunities available to Western Australia present a great chance for business, community and government to work together on the resolution of some of our more difficult social challenges,” said Dr Chaney.
In welcoming CSI to UWA, Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett said, “The community sector is an essential and vital part of our community. I believe that we should place more trust in the community sector, that we should progressively and carefully increase the share of services and care in our community delivered by that sector. A clear direction of greater reliance, greater faith, greater trust in our community organisations is needed.”
UWA joins the University of New South Wales, the University of Melbourne and Swinburne University of Technology as members of CSI.