Bulletin

Issue: June 2004

News

La Trobe launches Institute for Advanced Study

In a first for a Victorian University, La Trobe University has formally opened a dedicated Institute for Advanced Study on its main Melbourne campus at Bundoora.

The La Trobe University Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) which includes the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology, attracts leading scholars from around the world by providing special research fellowships tenable from two to six months.

IAS Fellowships are designed to free scholars from teaching duties and allow them to focus on 'the disinterested pursuit of knowledge', thereby helping to foster research that otherwise might not have taken place in Australia.

The La Trobe IAS - the stimulus and inspiration for which is the renowned Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton in the USA - comprises a 150 seat conference hall, suites of offices for visiting researchers and staff, and two residential blocks, offering up to four star accommodation.

Formally opening the Institute, La Trobe University Vice-Chancellor, Professor Michael Osborne, said its formation 'stems from a desire to preserve the intellectual core which is, or ought to be, a central characteristic of a university'.

'Regrettably nowadays the increasing interest in and media coverage of higher education concentrate almost exclusively on universities as teaching and training institutions and betray little, if any, sign of appreciating their role as centres for scholarship and the pursuit of new knowledge.'

Professor Osborne said Australian universities were being 'driven towards a deadly precipice beyond which was the abyss of academic mediocrity and of functional status as training enterprises serving the workforce needs of the state'.

'Sadly, even in the research arena the main thrust today is how to commercialise - not how to innovate or make new discoveries.

'Universities are quite happy to contribute to the economy, to assist in providing an expert workforce and to maintain a strong commitment to equity and participation,' Professor Osborne said. 'But as universities they wish to keep alive what has always been a central attribute hitherto, even in the darkest days, namely the capacity to engage in the discovery and transmission of new knowledge. In an age where universities are being inexorably drawn towards utilitarian status, I hope this new Institute will allow La Trobe University in some small way to become a beacon light demonstrating that the intellectual core that is the essence and defining point of a university is still alive in Australia.

'La Trobe University has fine researchers in every Faculty and this Institute is an attempt to highlight the research arena and to enhance the intellectual dimension by ensuring that leading researchers continue to come to Australia and enrich our academic scene.'

Professor Osborne said that the ultimate objective of the La Trobe IAS was similar to that set for itself by the famous Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton - of which he had been a member - namely engagement in the pursuit of '...advanced learning and the exploration of fields of pure science and high scholarship'.

'The La Trobe IAS is in its infancy at the moment, but let us celebrate this beginning and look forward to its growth as a catalyst for a vibrant community of international scholars in Australia.'

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