The Future Arts, Science and Technology Laboratory - FASTlab - is home to great ideas inspired by bringing together the brightest people to figure out how to make things better. We know that imagination is the foundation of creativity and innovation. We celebrate the unique quality of our humanity through our creative ability to imagine things that don’t exist yet and our capabilities to turn what we’ve imagined into something real. Something better.

FASTlab was created to explore the potential of human emotion, happiness and play, open doors for non-traditional collaborators, and commercialise lateral thinking. Unique in Australia, we are a translational research hub, specialising in providing opportunities for community and industry partners to participate in research projects that provide tangible outcomes and solutions to real-world problems quickly.

We do this from our home in ‘Q’ building on the quayside of Newcastle’s Honeysuckle Drive. Built using sustainably sourced timber and encased in the encased in 344 thermal glass panels we are proud to be in a building that’s made of the most highly technical and environmentally friendly material in the southern hemisphere. It’s a space that embodies our vision of how to do ‘R&D’ without the usual physical boundaries and with brilliant facilities to workshop, invent, create and make.

In a post-industrial era, competition is not just about the pursuit of efficiency. Attaining sustainable economic growth and balanced social and environmental development needs a paradigm shift on how businesses, government and NGOs can create value through creativity and innovation. This level of innovation involves breaking free from conventional thinking about what kind of researchers should be involved in problem solving particular issues.

Our work so far demonstrates that all organisations - social enterprises, for profit businesses or government departments - can benefit from FASTLab’s unique ethos.

Our research brings together academics, practitioners and industry partners from a range of different fields. We work jointly to develop and use novel conceptual and methodological approaches that leverage discipline-specific perspectives, theories, methods, and translational strategies that deliver innovative responses to real world problems.

There are a number of ways to work with FASTLab.

You can take part in RAPID

RAPID is series of research ‘sprints’ conducted over a 3-6 month period. Each RAPID sprint is a research project carried out between FASTLab researchers and anexternal partner (a community, business or NGO). RAPID provides financial, human and technological resources to enable partners to work together on user-driven real-world problems.

You can commission workshops

If you’re tired of consultants wielding post-it-notes and maker-pens we can offer a completely different and dynamic format for your next workshop. Our playful processes deliver results and a high level of participant satisfaction. From Hackathons to one-day games we design sessions that engage all your staff ensuring that everyone’s ideas are liberated. Whether you’re innovating, strategizing, team building or problem solving – use our creative talent to get you to where you need to be and enjoy the journey to get you there!

You can engage our students

We match students to Work Integrated Learning opportunities with industry, government, community and NGO’s by working on live-briefs for both course-work credits and where possible, pay.

You can contract us for research and consultancy

This one doesn’t really need much more describing but our staff team have research expertise to help you evaluate the success of a current project or co-design a new one using (for example) innovation and Human-Centered Design research methods through Visual Storytelling, Design Thinking, Design Ethnography, User Experiences(UX), Service Design, Co- & Participatory Design. You can ask us to build and test prototypes and pretotypes... We can help you innovate your product as a service provider, help you reinvent your role and support it with digital frameworks and platforms, adding the customer experience and your client ownership.

You can come to a talk or a networking session

We run keynotes and interactive talks to provoke and promote discussion about the things that have been exercising us at any given time. Sign up to our newsfeed for regular updates and come and introduce yourself.

We are always keen to build capacity and capability and we know there are already plenty of small businesses or sole traders who have a depth and breadth of practical knowledge to share with us.

We’re always on the look-out for coders, developers, UX and XR specialists, but if you review our reent projects you’ll see a whole spectrum of work that needs Newcastle’s Makers!

If that’s you, please get in touch and tell us about yourselves. We’re not making any promises but we may be able to connect you to opportunities that help build your business. We may have projects of our own that need your services.

We are alive in a time when the world as we knew it, together with our faith in the future, is disappearing. New uncertainties for individuals, society and the planet are now hallmarks of the so-called Anthropocene - the ‘New Normal’. If we are to attain sustainable economic growth alongside balanced social and environmental development, we need to radically rethink how businesses, government and NGOs can create value through creativity and innovation. Creativity that is rooted in sustainable social, economic, environmental, and cultural practices.

FASTlab is a gateway to the University of Newcastle’s internationally recognised research centres, the expertise of staff, students and graduates and the outstanding facilities the University has to offer.

If you have an idea or challenge you want to talk through or need us to help scope the project for, or want to find out more about our other funded activities, contact us at FASTLab@newcastle.edu.au