2025 End of Year Message from Hopkins Executive

As 2025 comes to a close, it’s a great time to reflect on the rich tapestry of initiatives, collaborations, and achievements that have marked this year at The Hopkins Centre in exploring bold ideas that can translate into better solutions for people with disability.

Key highlights for 2025 Hopkins success:

 

• Most recently, with observances of International Day of People with Disability (December 3), Human Rights Week (December 1-10), and Disability Action Week (November 24 – December 1), we have championed themes of accessibility, leadership, and human rights, underscoring our commitment to advancing an inclusive and sustainable future.
• Earlier in the year, our community came together for the 9th annual Bold Ideas Better Solutions Symposium (#BIBS25) in September.  This was our ninth annual symposium, and we are proud to share that we have had over 230 speakers involved, over 2000 attendees and 30 sponsors supporting the event over the last 9 years.
• Our regular Hopkins Hours have continued to be a cornerstone of our engagement.
• Hopkins researchers and members are well up past 1200 research publications since Hopkins started, with over 120 research publications this year!
• We have a total 78 active research projects at Hopkins, with a special mention to 2 MRFF grant wins this year in Facilitating Access to Sleep apnoea Screening and Treatment in Spinal Cord Injury and on mental health and acquired brain injury (ABI). 
• Hopkins membership and interest in research has increased beyond 800 full members and affiliate members.

 

It has been a busy time for research translation, with many projects coming to fruition this year and research being presented at many national and international conferences, and disseminated through various other methods.

• Recently Hopkins researchers had the opportunity to showcase our SCI research at ANZSCoS conference and hear about exciting new innovative SCI practices and technology from around the country.
• We also had a couple key awards from an editor’s choice award for Dr Michael Norwood VR nature project paper, through to Louise Bassingwaighte’s best conference paper award for On-road driving remediation: Achieving and maintaining fitness to drive following brain injury.
• One of our key program one projects, the TRACE 3.0 project, is coming to the end of its two years of data collection in the next month. The project tracks the patterns of recovery over time for individuals with SCI and ABI, from inpatient rehabilitation discharge up to 24 months post-discharge. We are excited for this data to improve transitions, experiences, access, care participation and supports across the rehabilitation care continuum.
• Many of our current Seed grant and Clinical Fellowship projects are coming to fruition and in final translation phases. This is an important and exciting period for all Hopkins program research, as projects move rapidly towards completion by the end of 2025.
• Both our Hopkins offices moved this year and now staff are in their new purpose designed and renovated office spaces. The new offices has enabled all staff to be co-located for team collaboration and integration.

 

The Hopkins Centre is grateful to our primary funding partner NIISQ and foundation partners, Griffith University and Metro South Health, for their ongoing support and research funding. This is crucial in enabling us to pursue our ambitious goals and make a lasting impact in the field of disability and rehabilitation research.

As we move into 2026, we are excited about the opportunities ahead. Together, we will work together continue to push boundaries, innovate, and implement solutions to complex problems and create positive practical change in the real world. We look forward to continuing to work with our members, partners and community next year and going forward in exploring bold ideas that can translate into better solutions for people with disability.

Thank you once again for your commitment and collaboration throughout the year. We wish you and your families and friends a restful, joyful and safe holiday season and look forward to another year of making meaningful advancements together in 2026.