Celebrating stories of collaboration

Volume 11 Number 9 September 28 - October 25 2015

Lara McKay, who heads up the University of Melbourne’s marketing and communications outreach, introduces our new brand campaign and the stories of collaborative achievements at the heart of the University.

When I introduce myself as the head of marketing and communications for the University of Melbourne people often look at me curiously and wonder what my job is. What do you have to market? It is such a great brand – your job must be easy?

In some ways these inquisitive people are right. I am fortunate enough to work for one of the most trusted brands in our city and our nation, full of bright minds and surrounded by an incredibly passionate community of students, faculty, staff, partner organisations and alumni. However, sharing the deeper stories of the outstanding work undertaken by researchers at universities, and the impact this research has on our daily lives, is not easy in a fast moving, 24/7 media cycle.

It is for this reason that we are seeking to share our achievements with you in our new University campaign.

A campaign helps show the community who we are, what motivates us and what separates us. As well as our crucial role in educating tomorrow’s leaders, universities have a vital role to play in the wider community through their research. Everyday our academics are working within, and across, their fields to try to make the world around us that little bit better.

The campaign rests on an idea that the University is a place where great minds collide. We are a community that comes together and challenges each other to do better and find answers to the most pressing problems we face as a society today.

Often, great discoveries can happen only when we bring together the greatest minds from different disciplines, with different backgrounds to consider a problem from all angles – when great minds collide we can achieve the remarkable.

Universities around the world, including of course, the University of Melbourne, have many great examples of where this intersection of disciplines – this collision – has resulted in improvements for humanity. From Melbourne’s foundation in 1853 when students studied a multidisciplinary degree under the Bachelor of Arts, bringing together History, Modern Languages, Mathematics and the Modern Sciences to the Melbourne Accelerator Program, established in 2012 which encourages inter-disciplinary innovation, collision can be seen in every facet of our university.

In 1915 designers, engineers, chemists and physicists came together to address the impact of chemical warfare in World War 1. This broad collision of minds, led by Professor William Osborne, Professor Orme Masson and Professor Thomas Laby, brought the world a new respirator that was incorporated into the gas mask.

In 1937 engineering Professor Aubrey F Burstall worked with Dr Frank VG Scholes to create a “Burstall jacket” - a variation on the solitary iron lung and helped to treat more than 1270 people in Victoria alone.

Collision is not just about bringing the sciences together for medical outcomes. In 1951, the University established the first Department of Criminology, bringing together sociological and psychological approaches to study criminal behaviour and imprisonment. And in 1973 Professor Ronald Henderson combined a sociological approach with economic analysis to better understand poverty in Australia. Using this method, and establishing a benchmark, he determined that seven per cent of the population lived in poverty.

More recently the Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation, first established in 1989, brings together art and science to protect and conserve valuable cultural works and materials.

These stories often get overlooked, the ‘collisions’ that led to these outcomes unnoticed. And few people know the role universities have played in such initiatives. This campaign aims to bring them to the fore, to celebrate the impact the collaborations – and universities – have on the wider community.

The campaign is a way for us to engage with the community and keep you better informed. A major initiative of this campaign is the launch of our new digital storytelling platform, Pursuit. Pursuit brings all our research and major initiatives together in one place. Here you can learn more about the work we are doing and the impact it will have on your daily life.

So how do we bring together a major campaign like this? For us it has started with our staff, our students, our alumni. The stories that are featured in the campaign are the result of research undertaken by our academics. From 3D printed physical human joints to tackling bushfires and to new treatment for cancer, our researchers are behind each of these initiatives.

Our people are our greatest asset at the University of Melbourne and so many were enthusiastic participants in our campaign. Our brand film depicts a group of almost 100 dedicated students, staff and alumni who were eager to be involved in the production. Just a few of the faces you can see in the film are people like Professor Richard James, who is an internationally renowned scholar; he is the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Academic) and Director of the Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education. He is also a former sprinter who represented Australia in the 100 metres and 100-metre relay in the 1979 World Cup. In 1980 he won the Australian 100 metre title.

Or Wendy Holden, a dedicated staff member of more than 20 years and our Acting Director of Students and Equity, who is also part of the group of staff who make up the water depicted in the ad. Ms Holden works with areas across the university to ensure we provide the best support possible for students.

The ‘star’ of our ad is VCA Undergraduate Theatre student Grace Lauer who made the move to Australia from Germany to study. Grace is just one of a number of students who came together from all faculties to contribute to making the brand film a success.

Meanwhile the image which features in many aspects of our campaign was inspired by original artwork by one of our alumnus from the Victorian College of the Arts, reinterpreted through photography by another alumnus from the VCA.

Examples of great minds colliding, of people and ideas coming together for the good of all, are all around us. It’s time to celebrate them.