RANZCO launched its fourth Innovate Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) on Saturday 15 November 2025 at the RANZCO 56th Annual Scientific Congress in Naarm (Melbourne). A College-wide initiative, the aim of the RAP is to renew and sharpen RANZCO’s commitment to improved eye health equity, First Nations workforce development and culturally safe care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Since RANZCO’s first RAP in 2019, the College has made significant progress in deepening, expanding, and maintaining partnerships with First Nations stakeholders to help grow, support and retain the First Nations ophthalmology workforce. Subsequently, RANZCO’s preceding Innovate RAP (November 2023 to November 2025) emphasised the importance of strengthening engagement, reviewing employment and recruitment policies, embedding cultural safety training into the Vocational Training Program, and removing internal barriers to improve First Nations participation. This new RAP extends on this work by:
- moving from reviewing and piloting, toward scaling and embedding
- providing more explicit and measurable deliverables with organisational accountability
- leveraging the expertise of our First Nations partners to continue to grow the workforce
- formalising the connection between reconciliation and RANZCO’s core mission (ophthalmology training, ongoing professional development and improving access through advocacy) through truth-telling to ensure reconciliation is integral to the College’s business rather than peripheral.
Thank you to the membership, RANZCO RAP Working Group, RAP Reference Group, College staff and Reconciliation Australia for their contributions to this new RAP. We look forward to progressing and reporting on the initiatives outlined in this new iteration.
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