The University of Melbourne offers
globally competitive research programs
across a wide range of disciplines.
In order to address major societal problems
a consolidated interdisciplinary approach is needed.
To meet this challenge
The University of Melbourne is
continuing to lead Australia's research thinking
with the development of the Melbourne Institutes.
The institutes are really quite a novel way
of attacking problems for us.
They bring together discipline depth
great knowledge and thinking in particular
areas like the law,
like economics or social sciences.
And they meld that with great depth in things like
the technological sciences, engineering, ICT.
And they produce solutions that neither
entity alone could do.
We're among the first universities in this country
to put together a suite
of interdisciplinary research institutes of this nature.
The goal of which is to solve big problems
that confront our community, our society and globally.
Students are enormously interested in the work
of the institutes because they
see that it's oriented towards a problem,
a problem that has tangible meaning to them,
how we live in a sustainable society,
how we manage our resources more efficiently,
how we manage the environment and deal with global warming,
how we bring social harmony and cohesion
to a complex world.
Any problem of a complex interdisciplinary nature.
It's going to have a local flavour,
it's going to have expertise that we have uniquely
here in Australia that we can bring to bear
on the problem.
The Neuroscience institute is tackling one of the last
great biological frontiers.
How does the human brain work?
What are the consequences of
disease in the human brain?
And are we better able to diagnose and fix those problems?
Energy is an enormous issue for us.
Energy at the moment, in our country
is largely dependent on fossil fuels.
It's not sustainable.
The efficiency with which we use energy
could be vastly improved and we
really have a lot of scope for research into that
to try and optimise how we use energy in our community.
Broadband, as we are seeing at the moment,
is transforming our society.
We are seeing a complete change
in the way people learn.
We're seeing massive changes
in the way people access information.
Leading to concepts of e-Law,
e-health,
e-commerce,
it's a revolution.
Broadband is a science in it's own right
trying to understand how this
can be harnessed efficiently
within our society,
what it means for the future lives of Australians.
Sustainability is obviously a huge issue for our society.
We need to be able to live in complex
large cities.
Where services, structures, infrastructure
are properly managed, properly configured
so they're as sustainable as possible
and supporting our community needs.
Materials is a fascinating science.
It touches almost everything we do
in our daily lives.
Our institute, which brings together engineers,
physicists, biologists,
is tackling some enormously interesting problems.
For instance, they're right at the heart
of trying to make a bionic eye.
Twenty years ago we created
a bionic ear at this University.
The University of Melbourne is commited
to tackling significant societal problems
that requires research from numerous disciplines.
The Melbourne Instititues enables researchers
to address these challenges
without the traditional barriers
that exist between fields of study.