We acknowledge the Traditional Owners/Custodians of the lands and waters on which we work and live on across Australia. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. We are committed to collaboration that furthers self-determination and creates a better future for all. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this website contains images and names of deceased persons.

The Australian Centre for Social Innovation
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Chris Vanstone

Co-CEO

Chris Vanstone
he/him
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Working on Kaurna Land

I’m passionate about the potential of social innovation. Over the past 25 years, I’ve explored it through practice, writing, and teaching in Europe and Australia, with the last 15 years dedicated to The Australian Centre for Social Innovation (TACSI).

Prior to TACSI, I was part of the team at the UK Design Council that created the Double Diamond design process model. I was also a founding member of the Design Council’s RED Unit and a co-founder of Participle.

Let’s connect if you’re interested in social innovation learning, just futures, social R&D, or TACSI’s work.

Chris's project highlights

See all our Work

Futures paper: Practices for realising just futures

Futures paper: Practices for realising just futures

As part of our commitment to building a National Futures Initiative, we’ve written a paper that reviews current futures practices, and sets forward a hypothesis for what we need to do to get to a more just future.

The work we need to do to get to a ‘just’ future

The work we need to do to get to a ‘just’ future

In 2024, we initiated conversations with people who spend a lot of time thinking about the future to help us answer a big question: What role should TACSI play in the second quarter of the 21st century? Here’s what we learnt…

National Futures Initiative

National Futures Initiative

Introducing a new national initiative to create the opportunity for individuals, communities, and organisations to imagine a more socially just future.

Social R&D for Australia

Social R&D for Australia

Since 2019, a growing group of partners – including TACSI – have been exploring the potential of Social R&D systems as an alternate way to make progress on tough social challenges.

Our Town

Our Town

Our Town, a long-term regional mental health initiative funded by the Fay Fuller Foundation and in partnership with TACSI and Clear Horizon, aims to build the capabilities of regional towns in South Australia to develop community responses to mental health.

Australian Volunteers Program

Australian Volunteers Program

The Australian Volunteers Program (AVP) matches skilled Australians with partner organisations in the Indo-Pacific region to support them to achieve their own development goals. We were initially engaged to support the design of the program’s Innovation Hub, and have since become the Hub’s Innovation Partner.

Case study: How we’re building Regional Innovation Capability (RIN)

Case study: How we’re building Regional Innovation Capability (RIN)

We’ve long known that in order to grow more innovative approaches to addressing complex social issues, we need to build the capability of people to think and act differently about how we work, fund and collaborate for change. Over the last couple of years, we’ve had the opportunity to dive into what this means through a long-term project called RIN (Regional Innovators Network), which is based in regional NSW.

Our ideas for realising the ambition of the NDIS

Our ideas for realising the ambition of the NDIS

As implementation of the National Disability Insurance Scheme and its cost-effectiveness comes under increased scrutiny, we put forward our ideas in 2017 about how we could realise the NDIS ambition and control costs in the long run.

Meet more of the team who make our work possible.

Meet the team