2022 Annual Report

The year 2022 was a productive one for the CAAC team, its student cohort and collaborators as we were engaged in a diversity of activities, research projects, publications, and stakeholder encounters. Our small, yet dynamic team conducted excellent research and teaching, and I am very grateful to each member for their resilience, passion and tenacity.
We are excited about the New Generation of Academics Programme (nGAP) position that the CAAC successfully applied for. It is a prestigious programme under the Department of Higher Education and Training which involves the recruitment of highly capable scholars as new academics. The CAAC will now have the opportunity to add an additional person to the team in 2023 who will be mentored through a PhD and into an academic career.

As a team we wrestled critically with our impact and reconsidered the future direction the CAAC should take. We have become more critical of the impact of our research and work. Besides building the academic knowledge base, what benefits do our activities offer to promote health, education and to build up communities? How does what we research and teach change the lives of persons at risk of or with disabilities and their families?

We have also had to challenge many of our conventional ideas and comfort areas. We had to make tough decisions in terms of the types of activities we need to focus on and those we need to let go of. What we learnt, is that change is constant and that to thrive, we must embrace flexibility, evolve to changing circumstances and pursue greater sustainability. The pandemic has impacted the way we now work and how we manage research, teaching and stakeholder engagement. We also reflected on the need for strategic and equal partnerships, collaborations, and support for the well-being of both staff and students. What we learnt for sure is that there is no going back to the way things were. Hybrid working and teaching is essential to how
we navigate the changed environment and reorganise our focus.