The NDRP Board is thrilled to announce our first Research Committee, which will provide independent, strategic advice on the NDRP’s research activities. These include our research funding, capacity strengthening, evidence to action and research translation activities. The Research Committee will serve for two years as a sub-committee of the NDRP Board.
Members were selected from a very strong group of more than a hundred applicants. The Board considered applicants’ experience and skills across the areas of research led by and with people with disability, disability advocacy and policy. The selected members showed they had applied the NDRP principles in their work across different contexts, making a significant positive impact on the lives of people with disability.
The twelve members bring deep experience across the breadth of the NDRP’s Research Agenda. They are:
- Prof Erin Wilson, Director Centre for Social Impact at Swinburne University
- Robbi Williams, CEO Julia Farr Association Purple Orange
- Tahlia-Rose Vanissum, Head of Policy at First People’s Disability Network
- Prof Jackie Leach Scully, Professor of Bioethics and Director of the Disability Innovation Institute, University of NSW
- Prof Sally Robinson, Professor of Disability and Community Inclusion at Flinders University
- Dr Jade McEwan, Assistant Director of Research and Evaluation for the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission
- Prof Anne Kavanagh, Chair in Disability and Health, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne
- Prof John Gilroy, Professor of Indigenous Health and Disability at the University of Sydney
- Prof Helen Dickinson, Professor of Public Service Research, University of NSW
- Dr Alexandra Devine, Senior Research Fellow in Disability Research Policy at the University of Melbourne
- Dr Elroy Dearn, Research Fellow in Design and Social Context at RMIT and the Summer Foundation
- Dr Kate Davies, Public Officer for the Community Disability Alliance Hunter and Research Director at the Law and Justice Foundation of NSW
Of the twelve members of the inaugural committee, half are people with disability.
Professors Kavanagh and Scully are current serving Board members of the NDRP and, with Professor Dickinson, served on the NDRP Working Party 2020-2023. They have played an instrumental role in the development and establishment of the NDRP and its transition to an independent organisation this year.
Before each NDRP funding round, the Research Committee will also form Independent Review Panels who will assess and score the research proposals that are submitted. In early 2025, we will share information on how to apply join a pool of Independent Review Panellists that may be called on in early 2025. In early 2025, we will share information on how to apply join a pool of Independent Review Panellists that may be called on in early 2025. The committee will hold its first meeting in December 2024.
