SustainWork runs at the level where university work actually happens — the faculty, the school, the institute. It measures the conditions your people work under, separates what you can change from what you can't, and shows you what to fix first.
Academic work runs on autonomy — people set their own direction and are judged on what they produce: publications, grants, contract research. What Deans, Heads of School and Institute Directors hold is everything around that work: strategic direction, the flow of opportunity and support, and whether careers actually move forward. That's the leadership your people feel every day — and it's what we measure.
Every finding is sorted by who can act on it — so effort goes where it can actually pay off.
Sector funding, government policy and some aspects of central administration. The report names these plainly, so the conversation moves off what can't be changed and onto what can.
The strategic direction you set, the major funding opportunities you position for and how well those bids are supported and executed. The external recognition that compounds into a flywheel of reputation, funding and recruitment. The networks you build across institutions and industry, so collaboration makes one and one equal three.
The internal machinery: workflows, communication, how outputs are tracked and celebrated. Practical support for grant writing and administration, opportunities shared rather than held close, career conversations that actually happen — and workload designed so teaching and research feed each other instead of competing for the same hours.
Most diagnostics look inward and backward. For higher education, our horizon scan looks outward and forward — and it's specific to your institution. We draw on published data for your university — students, staff, finance and research, benchmarked against the sector, your mission group and your state, and tracked over time — then translate those pressures onto the conditions we measure. So your plan prepares, not just repairs.
Where your university sits and where it's heading — enrolments, staffing, finances and research income, read against its peers rather than a sector average.
International student caps, course-fee settings and Accord implementation reshaping the revenue that cross-subsidises everything else.
Restructures and redundancy rounds across the sector, with casualisation and underpayment claims still working through.
Grant success rates below one in five and fixed-term contracts stacked end to end — with experienced researchers leaving the sector altogether.
AI cuts deeper here than in most sectors. It's reshaping research methods and course delivery, while raising questions few industries face — who owns the IP that AI touches, how assessment stays credible, and how students build critical thinking when an answer is one prompt away.
Psychosocial safety regulators turning their attention to universities — workload and poor change management are named hazards.
Same trusted report structure — with questions adapted for academic work. Benchmarked against other universities and research institutes, not a generic average.
The Workplace Sustainability Index across your schools, research groups and professional teams.
An automated horizon scan built on your institution's published data as well as what's coming at the sector — policy, funding, workforce and AI.
A prioritised plan sorted by what you control, what you can influence, and what you can only prepare for.
Reports, guides and training for your executive, your academic leaders and your teams.
Re-run the Index to prove the shift and keep it on track.
"The report separated what we could fix from what we had to weather. We stopped apologising for the funding environment and started fixing the things that were actually ours."
— Executive Dean, Faculty of Health
"Our early-career researchers weren't leaving because of contracts alone — they were leaving because nobody owned their career conversations. Now someone does."
— Director, medical research institute
"Three restructures in four years. The diagnostic showed the damage wasn't the change itself — it was how it was communicated. That, we could fix."
— Director, Student Services
And yes — you'll meet your psychosocial safety obligations, mapped to the Code of Practice, Respect@Work and Right to Disconnect. Regulators have made it clear universities aren't exempt. We just start from the other end: build the conditions for good work, and the risks largely take care of themselves.
Run it for one school, one institute or a whole faculty — no university-wide sign-off required.
Professional $4,750/year · Enterprise $11,500/year.
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