Cameron Duff

Cameron Duff is a Professor in the Centre for Organisations and Social Change in the College of Business and Law at RMIT University.

Professor Cameron Duff is a political scientist interested in social innovation and the politics of social change. He is currently Deputy Dean (Research and Innovation) in the School of Management where he works with colleagues to explore how social innovation drives organisational responses to enduring health and social problems in cities, including housing insecurity and homelessness, mental illness and distress. He is particularly interested in how social innovations emerge within organisational settings, and how organisations can support social change initiatives.

Duff commenced at RMIT in 2015 when he was appointed as Vice Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for People, Organisation and Work in the School of Management. Prior to joining RMIT, Duff held a Monash Fellowship in the Social Sciences and Health Research Centre at Monash University. Between 2005 and late 2008, Dr Duff was a Clinical Assistant Professor in the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia, Canada. Dr Duff was awarded his PhD in Political Theory at the University of Queensland in 2002 for research that developed a novel political ethics from the works of Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze. Duff’s first book, Assemblages of Health: Deleuze’s Empiricism and the Ethology of Life, was published in 2014 by Springer.

Duff's current program of research is funded by the Australian Research Council and the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI). Broadly, this work explores the design and delivery of health and social care programs, and the ways individual navigate pathways into and out of institutional settings. Working with colleagues at the University of New South Wales, Swinburne University and the University of Tasmania, alongside key industry partners, this work further examines the organisational character of health and social care delivery, the program logics that underpin these services, and the ways service outcomes and goals are characterised and measured. The results of this research provide crucial insights into the needs of diverse groups seeking support across the health and social care sectors in Australia, and how programs may be improved to better meet these needs.

Industry experience:
Professor Cameron Duff's current program of research is informed by an extended period of applied and practical research engagement. From August 2005 to January 2009 he was Manager of Youth Addiction & Mental Health Services at Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, Canada. In this role he was responsible for delivering evidence based mental health care services for disadvantaged youth in complex urban settings. His most significant responsibility in this time was the leadership of a large change management activity supporting the introduction of ‘community based’ youth mental health promotion initiatives across all programs within the Youth Addiction & Mental Health Services portfolio. Working with partners at the City of Vancouver, the Vancouver School Board, the Provincial Ministry of Health, and the School of Public and Population Health at the University of British Columbia, all programs were reviewed and then restructured to incorporate ‘strengths based’ program orientations. The goal was to move the locus of prevention care from clinical settings into the community.

Awards:
2019 RMIT Research Excellence Award; Outstanding Research Performance by an Academic in the School of Management

2018 RMIT Research Excellence Award; Innovative Research Supervision by an Academic in the School of Management

2017 RMIT Research Excellence Award; Best Journal Publication by an Academic in the School of Management

2014 Vice Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellowship. RMIT University.

2009 Sir John Monash Fellowship. Monash University.

2004 Young Writer’s Award. International Journal of Drug Policy Award for best paper published in 2004 by a writer aged under 35.

2002 Dean’s Commendation for High Achievement, University of Queensland.

1997 Australian Postgraduate Award