Shaping Lifelong Health
Challenge Theme

Seeing a problem or opportunity 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 trialling ideas in real-world settings.

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 or test it in a real-world setting.

Your idea could be at any stage. It might be something you’ve been thinking about, an existing program you’d like to strengthen or adapt, or an approach that hasn’t yet been tested with the community.

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.

Your level of involvement can vary depending on your capacity, from contributing an idea and participating in its development to playing a more active role in leading and testing a pilot.

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 Opportunity Lead.

Bringing research expertise or exploring research opportunities

You might fit here if you’re a researcher or part of a research team interested in working on research grounded in real-world community needs.

There are two main ways you can be involved:

• Develop a project through the Living Lab
  You bring an existing research idea or early-stage concept and work with the Living Lab to shape it through community input and partner involvement. This may include refining the project's focus, testing assumptions, identifying what matters to people locally, and strengthening the design to support future funding or implementation.

• Contribute to a project emerging through the Challenge
  You join a project led by community or service partners, contributing your expertise to research design, evaluation, or evidence generation.

In both cases, you will work alongside community members, services, and other partners. The Living Lab provides a structured way to shape research questions, co-design approaches, and generate evidence through real-world settings.

This pathway suits researchers who want to strengthen the relevance and impact of their work, build cross-sector partnerships, and contribute to work that moves from community insight through to real-world testing and evidence.

You don’t need a fully developed proposal, but you should be able to describe an area of interest, a potential idea, or 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.