Professor Shirley Randell AO PhD (www.shirleyrandell.com.au) is a global mentor, educator, author, public speaker, change activist, and campaigner for human rights. Shirley was an Australian Inaugural Women of Influence in 2012, a TIAW World of Difference Awardee in 2013, and winner of the Institute of Managers and Leaders ANZ Sir John Storey Lifetime Leadership Achievement Award in 2018. She is a distinguished alumna of the Universities of New England and Canberra, a conjoint professor of the University of Newcastle, and an Associate of the Centre for Sustainable Communities at the University of Canberra.

Please find attached the 7^th Briefing Paper in the EcCoWell 2 series, by Tom Schuller, Idowu Biao, and Mike Osborne, entitled, Rethinking Lifelong Learning within Current Contexts of Time and Space. The objective of this piece is to open up some fresh lines of thinking about lifelong learning by looking in a very broad way at the dimensions of time and place, in a global context.

‘Only connect’. Never was this injunction more fitting than today. I scan the material in this issue and realise how much each is part of an interwoven web. As Chris Brooks observes below, we see ‘how poorly policies are tied up into a coherent strategy: housing, education, skills and infrastructure are all conceived and implemented as separate and non-connected policies. If only one could find a clear beginning and untangle strands into a neat and orderly ball.  But there are too many ends and no free ends at all.

Learning transitions can be disruptive and unsettling to any young person. Children aged between 12-25 years old are particularly vulnerable, given how this period can impact on increased risks of anxiety, depressive disorders, and mental illnesses later in life.