UniMelbourne’s big new engagement investment

Another week, another transformative announcement from the University of Melbourne in Glyn Davis’s last year as vice chancellor. On Friday CMM reported a big expansion in who and what the university will teach. And now UniMelb is moving to grow its innovation precinct in its colony of Carlton.

The university is in partnership with a Lendlease-led consortium to redevelop the former Royal Women’s Hospital to house innovators and locals alike. The project builds on the success of the Lab14 prototype, where researchers and entrepreneurs worked alongside students and – what a surprise – international students. Campus housing developer Urbanest is another partner in the new project.

It’s all very MIT, a community of researchers among a community of residents as part of the Carlton Connect plan and it reflects Glyn Davis’s vision for the future of universities (at least big, rich, research-intensive ones in the flash-inner city) which engage with the communities they are part of. In September he hosted a conference where people from 25 research-intensive universities discussed, “how universities can enrich their cities, the impact of the changing role of universities as public institutions and how to create economic and commercial value.”


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