Jane Andrew

Background

About Jane Andrew

Jane is an educator, researcher, and Founding Director of Match Studio at the University of South Australia. In August 2004 Jane was awarded an APAI scholarship by The University of Adelaide and commenced a Ph.D. at the Centre for Labour Research/Australian Institute for Social Research. Jane's Ph.D. thesis was the primary component of an ARC Linkage Project that involved a partnership between the Centre for Labour Research and what was then the Department of the Premier and Cabinet’s, Strategic Projects Division. Jane received a Chancellor's Award for Academic Excellence for her thesis ‘Beyond the Creative Quick Fix: Towards an understanding of Creativity’s place in South Australia’s Economic Development Agenda’. Jane's thesis argued for a more nuanced means of measuring the economic value contributed by the creative professions, and enabling a more collaborative and systemic approach to fostering innovation through activating and demonstrating the nexus between teaching, research, policy, and professional creative practice within and across all levels of education, government and industry. Jane entered UniSA’s academy in 2009 combining her professional background in design practice, executive leadership, and public service within the South Australian government. Jane’s research stemming from her Ph.D. focuses on regional innovation systems and the development of ‘creative capital’. Innovation doesn’t happen without ‘creative capital’- the creative and innovative thinkers and doers in our workforce, and our communities. To this end, Jane has made a personal and professional commitment to initiate and deliver knowledge and skills development opportunities across the praxis of teaching and learning, research, and industry and community engagement. In 2010 she founded Match Studio. Match Studio has become recognised as an inspiring studio-based model for cross and inter-disciplinary teaching and research, focusing on client/industry-linked problem-based learning (PBL). PBL enables students to develop knowledge and skills within a context, which are then reinforced through project activities that address a real client/user need. To provide a ‘disciplinary agnostic’ framework for learning, Match Studio applies user-centered Co-Design & Design Thinking methodologies to enable people from different academic, professional, and personal backgrounds to stimulate, inform, and contribute to innovation in multiple contexts.