It is a cliché to say that time appears to be passing increasingly quickly, but last year did seem to go by in a flash. In February Griffith University welcomed Professor Carolyn Evans as our new Vice Chancellor and President and it has been a pleasure to work with her on a number of issues affecting the university and the wider region. Griffith’s newly released Strategic Plan for the next five years provides exciting opportunities to develop our own ambitious plans for growing the scale and impact of our research and we will be looking to all our members and partners to play an active role in this in the new year. I would also like to publicly acknowledge the support and encouragement given to the Institute and its predecessors by Professor Emeritus Ian O’Connor AC who retired at the end of last year and I know you will join with me in wishing him all the very best in his new endeavours.
In this Newsletter you can read a lot more about our achievements in securing grants, publishing papers, books and reports and speaking at conferences both in Australia and overseas. Our members have also been winning awards and prizes; all richly deserved and, again, reported below. And PhDs continue to be awarded to researchers supervised by members of the Institute.

There is an increasing expectation that university researchers engage with those outside the academy - in government, industry and the community sector – in shaping our research agendas and in presenting our results, conclusions and recommendations in ways they find useful. This expectation of engagement is not new to us as we have always worked hard to build these partnerships. But demonstrating the impact of our work is often more complicated, not least because research – no matter how high its quality – is only one determinant of policy, policy is only one determinant of practice and the outcomes of practice are not always as expected. Nevertheless, we continue to explore new ways of bringing our work to the attention of those beyond the academy who might find it useful and to develop new ways of measuring its impact.

The external world continues to amaze us in ways ranging from the inspiring to the profoundly worrying. I have been inspired by the courage and commitment of individuals and communities confronted with major disasters, but worried by the ways in which some of these events are explained and understood. Challenges to the integrity and relevance of science are becoming normalised and there is worrying evidence that ‘fake news’ is now widely distributed and even accepted as a phenomenon. Both are cause for concern and scarcely allayed by the proposition that we should happily live in a post-truth world. Rather, they reinforce the importance of producing high quality research designed to engage with real-world issues.

Finally, I would like to thank all members of the Cities Research Institute - academics, PhD researchers, adjuncts and our wonderful professional staff who support us day to day, as well as our ever-helpful Advisory Board - for rising to the challenge of designing, delivering and disseminating research that helps make cities better places. As more of us live and work in cities that are becoming bigger and more complex, and as cities around the world are increasingly connected, it is important that we rise to this challenge. Cities can be the source of many problems, but they can also offer solutions to living more sustainably, equitably, safely and happily. We will continue to contribute through our research to better understanding these problems and developing these solutions.

  Have a good break and see you in the new year.