The ANU McCusker Institute is a student-facing hub of transdisciplinary problem-solving for social impact. Open to students at any stage of their degree, you’ll work on real projects for positive social change and build the skills you need along the way — growing your network as you go.
The SoCIETIE Initiative is a 6-unit course that can count towards your Transdisciplinary Problem-Solving degree requirement. It’s an opportunity to make the change you want to see happen and develop skills along the way.
There is no weekly lecture. You build your own timetable from the KNoTs on offer — short workshops, usually three hours, with a few you can work through in your own time — and put the rest of your hours into one project you choose yourself: ten or more KNoTs alongside a 40-hour project, five alongside an 80-hour project with a community partner, or a mix of the two. Only three dates are fixed — your pathway plan in week 2, your completion tasks by week 11, and the Show and Share at the end, where you present what you made.
The McCusker Institute's for-credit course - the SoCIETIE Initiative - open to students from any degree who are seeking to create positive change in their communities and create real impact while you learn.
1. Get started with the SoCIETIE Initiative
You decide what the course looks like. One pathway weights your time towards skills workshops, the other towards a single substantial project, and you can sit anywhere between them. See the full list of SoCIETIE courses and who each is for, or read on — which pathway is right for you?
Still weighing up whether an interdisciplinary elective is what you want at all? Start with how to choose an ANU elective.
Express Your Interest
Get a permission code to enrol in SoCIETIE
Choose your Course and Timing
Offered at 1000, 2000, 3000 and 6000 level, with discipline-specific options. Available in both semesters and all sessions.
Choose your Pathway
Focus on developing skills through our Skills Pathway, or take on a project in our Project Pathway
2. Explore Projects and Partners
The project is not a case study. You spend 40 or 80 hours on a problem someone outside the university actually has — one a partner brought us, or one you bring yourself — and what you make at the end is yours to show: in a portfolio, at an interview, to the people you made it for.
3. Build Skills through our KNoTs
Our classes are called KNoTs (after the ANU motto Naturam Primum Cognoscere Rerum — to know the nature of things). Each one is a short workshop in a single capability — problem framing, systems thinking, dialogue across difference, facilitation — and you choose the ones your project needs. They are the part of this course that keeps working after it ends, in whatever degree and whatever job you take them into.
Explore Upcoming KNoTs
Discover the KNoTs that align with your interests and goals.
About KNoTs
KNoTs are the interactive workshops and learning experiences that make up class in the SoCIETIE Initiative.
Join us to make Social Impact
Don’t have space in your degree to take the SoCIETIE Course?
Certificate
Complete the Skills for Social Change Certificate
Attend
Join us at a KNoT
Recognition
Apply for the McCusker Prize in Humanitarian Engineering, offered by the ANU College of Systems and Society
Volunteer
Volunteer with an organisation through ANU+
Transition to Work
Make a positive social impact through employment. ANU Careers and Employability can help you take the next step
SoCIETIE @ ANU McCusker Institute
The SoCIETIE Initiative cultivates the skillsets and mindsets to tackle complex challenges, from local community issues to global concerns. In a transdisciplinary learning environment, students, academics and practitioners will learn from each other to deepen our understanding of the world and turn knowledge into actions through collaboration with partners in the community sector and beyond.
Vice-Chancellor’s Courses
The VC’s Courses ran between 2009 and 2024 and have now been retired. With the introduction of the ANU Graduate Attributes into the 2025 curriculum, the AATD [ANU (Graduate) Attribute - Transdisciplinary] subject area replaces the VCUG code, and have been brought under the umbrella of the SoCIETIE Initiative.