What we’re learning about systems change through practice

As 2018 drew to a close, we took the time to reflect on our ‘big change’ work, and explored the progress of a handful of initiatives that TACSI has been involved in.


19 November 2018


By the TACSI team

There is an imperative for big change across Australia’s social systems 

Moving beyond crisis-driven reform will be fundamental in tackling the challenges of our time. Progress is being made. There is a growing energy and momentum for collaboration, new types of partnerships and an eagerness to learn from models all over the world. 

There are increasing numbers of place-based initiatives, behavioural economics units and labs of all kinds. New methods and approaches are being tried. But these activities exist at the fringes of social policy development, whilst the problems they are meant to address are at the very core of our society.

In this paper, we explore this big change

We look at a small number of initiatives that TACSI are involved in, which are all still a work in progress. We’ll look at the various strategies employed for creating large scale change and the common characteristics across them. All of these initiatives require a further investment of time and resources — and while they all have promising indicators of success, they are yet to demonstrate the big change we seek.

We hope this early reflection can contribute to our own and our partners’ knowledge of what it takes to shift systems and prompt big change in Australia.

Read Big Change, a report that shares examples and emerging insights from TACSI’s big change work

Read the report
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