Academy Fellow

Professor Barraket is a global leading researcher of social economy – that is not for profits, cooperatives, mutuals and social enterprise – and social innovation. A political sociologist, her work focuses on how social equity is improved through new ways of organizing, resourcing, and scaling social change, and the relationships between state and civil society in public governance. She was admitted as a Member of the Order of Australia in 2023 for her contributions to education and to advancing social enterprise.

Empirically, Barraket’s research has rendered visible economic activity led by social purpose, which has had a substantial effect on Australian civil society and public policy. Theoretically, her research has contributed to advancements in knowledge of the micro-foundations of institutional theory and new public governance and is known for contributing at the interdisciplinary interface of policy studies, organisational theory, and sociology. Methodologically, Barraket’s work has made a leading contribution to interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral research design which advances knowledge, policy and practice. This approach in turn generates conceptual advancements by designing for empirical contexts in which practice often outstrips existing theory, generating new explanatory frameworks through abductive analysis.

Barraket has trained, mentored and/or examined the large majority of early career researchers in social innovation and entrepreneurship in Australia. She has published more than 110 outputs and has successfully led or co-led more than $14 million in funded research, including 7 Australian Research Council grants. The majority of her papers have been published in international journals and attract early and consistent citations. A recent systematic review of social entrepreneurship publishing identified Barraket as the field’s second most productive researcher worldwide.

Barraket leads Melbourne Social Equity Institute, an interdisciplinary research institute of the University of Melbourne which supports a fairer world through community-engaged and co-productive research. Grounded in her conviction that contemporary social science should advance solutions as well as diagnose problems, Barraket has produced a variety of applied outputs from her research to support practice and policy change. This includes most recently the online platform, Seedkit, which helps social enterprises measure their social impacts. In 2025, she was elected to the US-based Academy of Community Engagement Scholarship for significant contributions to advancing university-community collaboration

Professor Barraket is a regular advisor to community organisations, governments, and philanthropy and has been national expert advisor to the OECD on three initiatives related to improving social equity through the social economy. In 2024, she was expert advisor and lead drafter of the National Not-for-Profit Sector Development Blueprint. Prior to her current role at the University of Melbourne, she was founding director of the Centre for Social Impact Swinburne, which she built into the largest social economy research centre in the world.

Director, Melbourne Social Equity Institute 2022 – present

Member Foundational Elements Subcommittee for the Social Impact Investment Working Group, Treasurer’s Investment Roundtable, Commonwealth Treasury, 2024-2025

Expert Adviser and Lead Drafter, National Not-for-Profit Sector Development Blueprint 2023-2024

Founding Director, Centre for Social Impact Swinburne 2014-2022

Member, social enterprise strategy expert reference group, Victorian Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions 2020-2021

National Research Director, Centre for Social Impact 2017-2019

Member, Academy of Community Engagement Scholarship (elected 2025)

Member, Order of Australia General Division (appointed 2023)

Individual Outstanding Achievement Award, Australian Impact Investment Awards (2021)

Emerald Literati Outstanding Paper award for best paper in Journal of Social Marketing (2019)

Swinburne Vice Chancellor’s Leadership Award (inaugural) for excellence in people leadership (2018)

Barraket, J. (2020). The role of intermediaries in social innovation: The case of social procurement in Australia, Journal of Social Entrepreneurship 11 (2), 194-214

Barraket, J., Eversole, R., Luke, B., & Barth, S. (2019). Resourcefulness of locally-oriented social enterprises: Implications for rural community development. Journal of Rural Studies, 70, 188-197

Barraket, J., McNeill, J., Campbell, P., & Carey, G. (2023). Navigating network governance: the role of social enterprise in local employment services. Public Management Review, 25(6) 1082-1103

Barraket, J., Keast, R., & Furneaux, C. (2016). Social Procurement and New Public Governance. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Farmer, J., Kamstra, P., Brennan-Horley, C., De Cotta, T., Roy, M., Barraket, J., Munoz, S. A., & Kilpatrick, S. (2020). Using micro-geography to understand the realisation of wellbeing: a qualitative GIS study of three social enterprises. Health and Place, 62, 102293