General News
3 June, 2025
First Nations in essence
TO kick off Reconciliation Week, CQUniversity Cairns has officially launched the Jawun Research Institute – its first to upgrade from a centre into an institute – dedicated to advancing First Nations-led research in health, education, self-determination and more.
A new era of experience-based research led by First Nations for First Nations is set to begin at CQU Cairns after the university officially launched the Jawun Research Institute on Tuesday.
Originally founded in 2017 as the Centre for Indigenous Health Equity Research (CIHER), the centre was upgraded to institute by the university due to its rapid growth and expansion, capacity to attract funding, addition of qualified researchers and it has become the first in CQU Cairns’ history to upgrade from centre to institute.
The upgrade means the institute can expand its research to a whole new range of disciplines, like the environment, economics, sustainability, language and more on top of their established work in health.
The inaugural director of the institute, Prof. Yvonne Cadet-James, said the launch of the institute was a great achievement.
“Today’s a very exciting day. The Jawun institute is being launched today and the institute is about conducting research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, groups and communities based on their needs to provide good impact and outcomes for improving Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander health and wellbeing,” she said.
“There’s certain criteria that the universities have on what constitutes a centre and what constitutes an institute and it has to do with a range of successful income, that comes into the institute, but also a program of work that meets the criteria for being an institute and earlier this year the centre was named an institute.
“What this means is that we can actually build better capacity, more capacity to work with our internal and external partners, and in particular Aboriginal groups, organisations and communities in North Queensland.”
Vice president for research at CQU Grant Stanley said the institute would attract more researchers, a broader spectrum of research and hopefully better outcomes for communities in the future.
“This is an incredibly important moment because of the work that’s been going on at CQU in research for First Nations people,” he said.
“An institute, not only focuses on one area, but a whole range of different areas. So environment, economics, sustainability, language, those areas are now part of the Jawun institute. The membership has grown enormously with different researchers coming into the organisation, but also the amount of work that is being done.
“We currently have approximately 20 researchers employed by CQU but we also have researchers from other organisations for different projects, so we could up to 50 working for the institute now.”
CQUniversity also launched its stretch Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP), marking a commitment to embedding reconciliation into every facet of the university’s operations, from governance and strategic planning to the delivery of education.
