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 our Bold Ideas Better Solutions Symposium (#BIBS25) in September which was another great event.  This was our ninth annual symposium, and we’re proud to share that across those 9 years of BIBS we have had more than 230 speakers, 2000 attendees and 30 sponsors supporting the event.
• Our regular Hopkins Hours have continued to be a cornerstone of our engagement and were very well attended and received.
• Hopkins researchers and members have published over 120 research papers this year and over 1200 since Hopkins started.
• We have a total 81 active research projects at Hopkins, with a special mention to 2 recent MRFF grant successes in 2025 – one on 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 an incredibly busy time for research translation, with many projects coming to fruition at the end of this year  and research projects and outcomes being presented at many national and international conferences and disseminated through a wide variety of other methods.

• Recently Hopkins researchers had the opportunity to showcase 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 year data collection in the next month. This project tracks the patterns of recovery over time for individuals with SCI and ABI, from inpatient rehabilitation discharge up to 24 months post-discharge. TRaCE 3.0 findings will allow better understanding of people’s recovery trajectories and experiences of rehabilitation which can inform novel interventions and service models to improve access to rehabilitation that is matched to individuals’ personal preferences and life situations.
• Many of our current Seed grant and Clinical Fellowship projects are also being completed this year with research translation activities in full swing. It’s an important, exciting and very busy period for very many of our Hopkins Centre researchers and I take this opportunity to thank you all for your hard work and commitment throughout 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.