“2024 has been one of the years that seems to have passed incredibly quickly – yet when I think back to the start of the year, it seems like a long time ago!”
For OTARC, 2024 has been another milestone year. At year’s end, we will have grown to 38 staff (18 researchers, 5 clinicians, and 15 research support staff), 21 students, and a number of casual staff. We have doubled our size in less than two years! This year, we have also officially become a majority neurodivergent centre, meaning that most of OTARC’s staff and students have lived experience of neurodivergence.
One of our key strategic goals following Olga’s bequest was to build a neuroinclusive culture at OTARC. We have been successful at attracting new neurodivergent scholars, students and staff to OTARC through targeted recruitment, a dedicated PhD scholarship for Autistic scholars and modifying our recruitment approach. In 2024, led by our Centre Manager, Doug Scobie, we have also established a neuro-inclusion coaching resource for OTARC staff and students. Partnering with community experts in this area, OTARC staff and students now have access to neurodivergent mentors and coaches to support their professional growth and manage work-life pressures. We are hopeful that this program will enable us to develop practices that enable all of members across the neurodiversity spectrum to flourish in their work.
2024 also marked the end of one of the most impactful careers in autism research in the field; that of Professor Cheryl Dissanayake. We celebrated Cheryl’s retirement at the end of June with a seminar in which Cheryl reflected on 40 years of autism research – a fascinating insight into the extraordinary growth and change in the field. There were also many tributes to Cheryl on the day including from our new Vice Chancellor, Professor Theo Farrell, and Amanda Golding who was instrumental in introducing Cheryl to Olga Tennison 16 years ago, and in doing so, paved the way for the Centre that we are today. As I reflected on the day, while Olga’s generosity has made a lot of things possible, OTARC as a concept is all Cheryl. Cheryl did not let Olga down and has been able to transform an initial gift into multiple bodies of work and opportunities for others – students, post-docs, and research support staff. For many of us, Cheryl represents a defining influence in the development of our careers. It has been different not having Cheryl in our hallways since July, but she has left OTARC in a great place, forging forward towards an exciting future.
Another key strategic objective for the centre is to further develop our community engagement. Our Autvisory committee, a group of Autistic community members who support us to conduct research that is community-centred, has been established for two years and in 2024 provided consultation to 10 research projects proposed by OTARC researchers and students. We also held our second annual Research Showcase in September using a format of short talks about ongoing OTARC research from our researchers followed by Q&A from a community audience. These showcases have been well attended by the community including Autistic people, families, caregivers, practitioners and policy-makers. They will remain a regular feature of our event schedule, so stay tuned for information about our 2025 showcase!
Finally, this year we moved from providing an Annual Report of activities to an Impact Report. This report summarises all of our research activities and the ways in which our research impacts community, policy and the research field. You can find the complete report including impact case studies here.
As this is our last newsletter for the year, I would like to wish all of you a very happy holiday season. I hope that you are able to take some time for rest and relaxation and the New Year brings a refreshed perspective and renewed energy.
– Alison
