Investigating sexuality, health and social worlds in Australia

The Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society (ARCSHS) is a social research centre based at La Trobe University in Melbourne, focusing on the social dimensions of sexuality, health and well-being, and how these issues affect Australians and others. Underpinning ARCSHS’s work is a commitment to ensure its research findings have real-world impact in a rapidly changing world. Since its beginning in 1993, the centre’s research and related activities have been cast within an emancipatory frame that constitutes a determination to produce ‘really useful knowledge’. This article does not provide a full account of all ARCSHS’s research and its application and impact over its 33 years; rather, it offers an analysis of the underpinnings of the centre’s contribution to scholarship on several interconnected social issues that determined and supported its impact, notably but not only in health education—in effect, a conceptual ‘origin story’ of the centre. Key areas of enquiry discussed in more detail are the centre’s contribution to HIV and AIDS (particularly among gay men in Australia—the most affected population), sexuality research, LGBTQ+ health and well-being, community participation in research, and ARCSHS’s knowledge transfer, research translation and impact work.