Our research

Social legacies of large-scale sport events

Title: Developing an inventory to improve evidence-based planning and monitoring of social legacies

Investigators: Dr Millicent Kennelly, Emeritus Professor Kristine Toohey and Dr Alana Thomson

Overview: Host communities value the social legacies of large-scale sport events such as the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Commonly cited examples of social legacies include encouraging volunteering, stimulating national pride, and improving provision for sport participation. This project developed an empirically derived Social Legacy Inventory (SLI) for large-scale sport events. The SLI catalogues 48 diverse, positive social legacies identified by practitioners and in academic research situated in different geo-cultural and temporal contexts. In doing so, the SLI gives visibility to the diversity of social legacies and provides a resource for future host city practitioners, to guide their thinking around what social legacies may be needed and/or possible in their specific contexts. In addition, the SLI provides a conceptual reference point for the development of future knowledge on the impacts and legacies of large-scale sport events.

Industry partners: International Olympic Committee, Olympic Studies Centre

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Constructing Building Integrity

Title: Constructing Building Integrity: Raising standards through Professionalism

Investigators: Prof Charles Sampford, Professor Keith Hampson, AProf Sacha Reid, AProf Cheryl Desha, Prof Paul Burton, AProf Hazel Easthope, Prof Michael Ostwald, Prof John Phillimore, Prof Kerry London, Roxane Shaw, Nabil Yazdani, Andrew Lumsden.

Overview: This project aims to investigate the role of professions in rebuilding trust in residential building construction in Australia. In the wake of expensive and life-threatening building defects, this project expects to generate new knowledge about the functioning of individual professionals, professionals employed in multi-profession organisations, and professionals’ interaction with their institutional environment. Expected outcomes include practical recommendations for improved professional standards, a rigorous building integrity system and a means for measuring change. Anticipated benefits include greater awareness by professions, trades and regulators of their role in in delivering the public goods of a trustworthy construction industry.

Industry partners: Australian Research Council Linkage Project, Professional Standards Council, Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety, Department of Housing & Public Works, Corrs Chambers Westgarth.

Persuading tourists to use fewer resources

Title: Understanding how best to persuade tourists to use fewer resources across various accommodation settings.

Investigators: Professor Susanne Becken, Associate Professor Alexandra Coghlan and Xavier Font.

Overview: This project aims to bring sustainable reductions in resource use to mainstream tourism, one of the world’s largest, most resource-intensive sectors. The project challenges the view that pro-environmental attitudes are a pre-requisite for pro-environmental behaviours, and in doing so promotes redesigning social practices in accommodation to achieve greater sustainability outcomes.

Using an experimental design, this project will provide empirical evidence on the efficacy of combining smart technology and interpersonal communication into a smartservice intervention to change guest resource use. The desired outcomes will be less resource consumption, greater guest satisfaction, and an evidence-based approach to a greener mainstream economy.

Funder: ARC Discovery Project (DP200100972 — Griffith University)

Driving IT innovation for sustainable tourism

Title: Driving IT innovation through student/industry partnerships to deliver sustainable nature-based tourism experiences

Investigators: Associate Professor Alexandra Coghlan, Dr Leigh-Ellen Potter, Professor Betty Weiler

Overview: Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality hold much promise in delivering innovative tourist experiences, and with the right design tools, can be used to make tourism more sustainable. This interdisciplinary project between tourism and IT looks at how student/industry partnership can drive IT-innovation in tourism, reducing the risk for industry involvement in new product design, providing low cost IT-products that enhance the tourist experience, developing capacity among academics and students, and engaging with industry. Current projects involve designing a fun and interactive VR game for reef tourism, and AR-enhanced interpretation for rainforest walks.

Industry partners: Quicksilver Cruises

Economic value of community club-based sport

Title: Economic value of community club-based sport: An Australian perspective

Investigators: Professor Chris Gratton, Professor Graham Cuskelly, Professor Kristine Toohey, Professor James Skinner, Dr Daniel Lock

Overview: Sport is widely perceived to generate social benefits.  These include individual impacts: improved physical health and fitness, increased subject well-being, and increased educational performance; and broader community impacts such as increased social capital and reduced crime and anti-social behaviour. This research attempts to measure the economic value of such benefits. The aim of the study is to develop a valid model that will provide an economic estimate (i.e. dollar value) of the broader social benefits associated with the provision of, and participation in, community club-based organised sport to Australian society.

Industry partners: Australian Sports Commission