Inside RMIT’s Social Innovation Precinct

RMIT is expanding its presence in Melbourne, with the launch of a social innovation precinct that has hit the ground running with eleven newly funded projects.

Spanning sectors like the clean economy, student wellbeing, and Indigenous recognition, the projects are among many hundreds that will eventually plant roots at the centre.

Director Tom Bentley said the precinct partnership – which has been under development since 2018 will help advance a variety of innovations through its unique framework and emphasis on lifelong learning.

“The main thing about this proposal is that it puts lifelong learning and workforce skills on an equal footing alongside startups and advanced technology environments,” he said.

“Traditionally these have been treated as separate, but increasingly we are finding that industries and governments are demanding new workforce skills alongside largescale applications of technology or new scientific breakthroughs. Reason being – it’s impossible to advance something like a largescale AI adoption or electrification across the economy, unless we also have the skilled workers who are ready to implement these fast-changing solutions.

“So, developing a precinct which puts those things alongside each other is quite a distinctive thing to do.”

This forward-thinking approach is balanced by lessons from the past, Tom said, with the pandemic having underscored the importance of self-reliance at a national level.

“The pandemic raised questions about capability and resilience and highlighted the need for good relationships between universities and different players in innovation.

“At RMIT, our doors are always open. Our aim is to break down those silos that keep innovators, academics and industries apart.”

Making use of urban assets and local talent

The Social Innovation Precinct is strategically located in a block in City North, where Tom says there is naturally a “shared district identity”; a mix of history and infrastructure; and a brimming talent pool.

“Over the last ten years we’ve worked with institutional partners in the City North Area, Melbourne University and major hospital partners and the City of Melbourne to create more of a shared district where the common needs of our working population, our students and our knowledge workers are all prioritised.

“We recognise that there are tens of thousands of people coming into the district every day to work and study and many people who live in the district community around that northern side of the city, the edge of the CBD over to Arden and West Melbourne and up into Parkville and beyond.

“We have a shared district identity and it is key to the wider Victorian economy, but there are some things that we need to work on for people to access and benefit from the jobs and enterprises that are growing across the district.

“With the precinct, we can come together and work on innovation challenges. Whether it’s in the built environment, social cohesion and community participation; or in the impact of various technologies on health and well-being,” he said.

Social impact

Tom says there is no limit to the social problems the precinct will help to solve, but that projects will generally fall into five key impact areas: the Clean Economy; Social care and wellbeing; Future engineering and technology; Indigenous recognition and celebration; and international collaboration.

The projects will add to RMIT’s existing portfolio, which is best known for its prototypes and test out applications for robotics and AI; and virtual environments that support aged care and ‘in home’ health care systems.

The Social Innovation Precinct will build on this impact, with programmes like ‘Relaunch’, which supports early-stage entrepreneurship for circular economy solutions.

“[Relaunch] has got people building recycling systems, online tagging and labelling systems, and businesses for managing different types of environmental waste,” Tom said.

“There are product lines and startups focused on design solutions for things like acoustic panels inside buildings; and construction tiles made from natural materials rather than harmful, artificial or mined materials.

“Meanwhile, software and artificial intelligence solutions are helping to connect people up, so they can upgrade or resell children’s clothes.”

Ingredients of a successful innovation ecosystem

Alongside this innovation activity, the social innovation precinct has those all-important connections to the larger scale workforce, and the infrastructure investment partnerships that are needed to renew precincts long term.

Tom said these elements, plus dedicated infrastructure and community networks are the cornerstone of a successful precinct.

“We need dedicated infrastructure that’s clustered together in different city locations. We need community networks and ways to support the participation of lots of people. We need to build up systems of participation and ways for people to access jobs, start-up opportunities and lifelong learning.

“And then we need networks for innovation exchange. We need investment. We need start up systems, we need access to talent from overseas. We need dedicated strategies to build up new ventures in specific areas, whether it’s clean energy transition, electrification startups or Med tech startups and health information systems and collaborations between firms and networks who are working on similar kinds of problems but in different parts of the Asia Pacific.”

Building partnerships and investment proposals

Sharing more on this and RMIT’s approach to building partnerships and investment proposals that will help advance long term vision,Tom will join the opening keynote panel with other Melbourne precinct leaders at the National Health & Innovation Precincts Summit.

This year’s conference will be held 2-3 December, with the Melbourne Precincts Discovery Day (site tours of Melbourne’s precincts) taking place on the 1 December.

Learn more and register your tickets here.

RMIT also invites you to be part of the unfolding City North story through events, activities, and collaborations shaping this next chapter for RMIT and our City North neighbours. Explore what’s happening here.