Shaping Lifelong Health
Challenge Theme

Seeing a problem or challenge you’d like to explore?

You might fit here if you’re noticing a challenge, gap, or opportunity in your organisation, service, or community and want to explore what could be done about it.

This could relate to how people stay well, maintain independence, or remain connected as they age. It may be something people are experiencing barriers with, or an opportunity to build on what is already working.

You don’t need to have a solution. In many cases, projects begin with a shared understanding of the issue before any ideas are defined.

Through the Living Lab, you’ll work with community members, researchers, and partners to better understand the situation and develop and test possible ways forward. This may involve workshops, conversations, or co-designing and testing ideas together.

Your level of involvement can vary depending on your capacity, from helping shape the project’s focus through to playing a more active role in guiding and testing an approach.

If you already have a specific idea or program you’d like to develop or test, you may prefer to apply as an Idea or Solution Partner.

Bringing an idea or approach you’d like to develop or test?

You might fit here if you have an idea, program, or approach that could support people to stay well, independent, or connected as they age, and you're looking to develop, refine, or test it through genuine community involvement.

Your idea could be at any stage. It might be something you’ve been thinking about, an idea or solution you’ve started working on and developing or an existing program you’d like to strengthen or adapt.

Through the Living Lab, you’ll work with community members, services, researchers, and other partners to further shape your idea and explore how it could work in practice. This may involve co-design workshops, refining the approach, or piloting the idea in a local setting.

This pathway can help you test feasibility, build evidence, and strengthen an idea to support future funding, implementation, or scale.

If you’re still exploring a need or opportunity and don’t yet have a specific idea, you may prefer to apply as a Problem or Challenge Partner.

Bringing research expertise or exploring research opportunities?

This pathway is open to University of Newcastle researchers interested in developing or contributing to projects through the Shaping Lifelong Health Challenge.

There are two ways to be involved:

• Develop a research project through the Living Lab — you bring a research idea or question and work with the Living Lab to shape it through community and partner involvement. The Living Lab can support you with study design, participant recruitment, co-design facilitation, and running activities in community and service settings.

• Contribute to a project emerging through the Challenge — you express your interest in contributing your expertise to projects led by community or service partners. This is a non-competitive register used for matchmaking. We’ll reach out if a project looks like a good fit.

You don’t need a fully developed proposal, just a research area, an idea, or a sense of how your expertise could contribute.

Interested in being involved and sharing your perspective?

You might fit here if you’re interested in being part of conversations, workshops, or activities that explore how people can stay well, independent, and connected as they age.

You don’t need any specific experience or background — just an interest in the topic and a willingness to share your perspectives and experiences.

As a Community Contributor, you may be invited to take part in workshops, provide feedback on ideas, or help shape and test new approaches. Your input will help ensure that projects reflect real experiences and what matters most to people in the community.

There’s no ongoing commitment — you can choose to be involved in the opportunities that interest you.