Caring Futures Institute - Better Systems

Matthew Flinders Fellow, Senior Lecturer

Associate Professor Elizabeth Lynch is a Matthew Flinders Fellow in the Caring Futures Institute (CFI), Flinders University with a clinical background in physiotherapy and stroke rehabilitation. She is deputy lead of the Knowledge Translation workgroup and has responsibility for overseeing systems to support involvement of people with lived experience in CFI research activities.

Liz’s research is focussed on stroke rehabilitation and life after stroke. By setting standards for clinical excellence and building systems for survivor involvement in research, her research program is designed to advance evidence-informed, person-centred research and service transformation.  

Research outputs have been focused on effectiveness of rehabilitation interventions that have been cited in clinical guidelines (from Australia-New Zealand, United Kingdom, USA, Canada, France, Brazil, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland) and of implementation initiatives to improve service delivery. Academic outputs and activities have supported capacity building in health professionals to systematically implement evidence in healthcare settings, and to involve people with lived experience of stroke in research.

Current research activities have shifted towards Life After Stroke initiatives, by identifying and addressing the priorities and unmet needs of survivors of stroke in Australia. These include co-producing and evaluating a website to support self-efficacy in survivors of stroke living in the community (MRFF-funded consumer-led grant opportunity, CIA) and exploring innovative methods of delivering information to survivors of stroke and carers.

• Stroke rehabilitation
• Life after stroke
• Implementation science
• Collaborative research methodologies
• Health literacy
• Clinical practice guidelines

Liz has expertise in implementation science research and collaborative research methodologies. She has published findings from cluster-randomised controlled trials, randomised controlled trials, systematic reviews, qualitative studies as well as surveys and observational cohort studies.

Liz collaborates closely with the Stroke Foundation, and co-chairs the Australian-New Zealand Living Guidelines for Stroke Management, the only "living" stroke guidelines globally. She has accepted advisory roles in teams from Singapore and India who are adapting (Singapore) or contextualising (India) the Australian-New Zealand Stroke (rehabilitation) Guidelines for the Singaporean and Indian (LMIC) contexts.  

Liz is co-chairing an international roundtable supported by the International Stroke Recovery and Rehabilitation Alliance and has convened a workgroup (16 experts, 11 countries) to advance involvement of stroke survivors in all forms of stroke recovery research. Consensus expert recommendations are due for dissemination mid-2026.