The $129 million project is a 10-year partnership with 60 Australian organisations to address challenges across sectors including aged care, family services, early childhood, social housing, mental health and disability support.
Professor Sheila Degotardi, from Macquarie University’s School of Education, will drive reform in Australia’s early childhood education sector as part of her leadership role in the CRC.
Professor Sheila Degotardi will play a key role supporting Australia’s first Care Economy Cooperative Research Centre.
Professor Degotardi, who is also Director of Macquarie University’s Centre for Research in Early Childhood Education (CRECE), will collaborate with early education partners including Gowrie NSW, SDN Children's Services, KU Children's Services, G8 Education and C&K Queensland to advance change in service delivery, quality improvement and workforce participation.
“Government and stakeholder investment in the Care Economy CRC provides an Australia-first opportunity for the early childhood sector to work collaboratively across disciplines and contexts to strengthen early childhood provision,” says Professor Degotardi.
“This opportunity recognises the world-class, impactful early childhood education research conducted by CRECE and capitalises on the close relationships our researchers have with early childhood stakeholders.”
In addition, Professor Tao Gu, from Macquarie University’s School of Computing, will work with industry partners to develop next-generation medical and assistive technologies.
“We will apply advanced machine learning technologies to solve industry challenges such as enhancing patient monitoring and improving predictive analytics,” says Professor Gu.
The Care Economy CRC is projected to deliver more than $1.4 billion in direct benefits over the next 15 years through the development of care technology, the growth of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the care sector and workforce efficiencies, including a new education and training program.
