July 2026

We have nurtured the foundations that will sustain our long-term success – our people, our values and our partners. We've introduced our new Performance Strategy, built around rewarding Achievements, Behaviours and Capabilities, and established the La Trobe Leadership Academy. Over 1,000 colleagues have already participated in Leadership Redefined, helping us build a stronger leadership culture across the University. We've also launched our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy and strengthened our commitment to staff wellbeing and safety through a range of initiatives.

Our partnerships have continued to deepen. The commissioning of Australia's first university supercomputer in collaboration with NVIDIA, mRNA Victoria and NEXTDC has established world-leading AI capability at La Trobe. We are collaborating with OpenAI to ensure AI equity, by providing free access to the best AI models to everyone in our university community. Our partnerships with the City of Hume, Bendigo Kangan Institute and Melbourne Polytechnic enabled the establishment of Federally funded Suburban Study Hubs in Broadmeadows and Epping, bringing university closer to communities across Melbourne's north.

We're also accelerating growth in the areas of greatest need for Australia. Under our Health Innovation Strategy, we have opened our new Rural Dentistry and Oral Health Clinical Teaching School in Bendigo – the largest such school in Australia. We have also recently completed our La Trobe Health Clinic at Bundoora (more on this below) and upgraded nursing and midwifery clinical teaching facilities across our campuses. Together with the La Trobe-led Care Economy Cooperative Research Centre, for which we secured $35 million in Federal funding, these investments will enable us to address essential workforce shortages.

Our regional strategy is gathering momentum too. We've completed the redevelopment of our Shepparton campus and launched our ambitious Regional Growth and Innovation 2030 Strategy, with further big news below for Bendigo. We’ve expanded our incredibly successful Regional Pathways Program with backing from philanthropic donors and launched a series of new scholarships to support regional students. And we have advanced our Education Innovation Strategy, opening a new Education Practice Lab at Bundoora, to enable teachers and schools to explore best-practice pedagogy in a cutting-edge learning environment.

Importantly, we're also seeing progress in areas that directly affect our students and research. Student experience improved significantly, with one of the largest gains nationally in the Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching survey, and the largest improvement in Victoria. Our researchers secured a record $114 million in Higher Education Research Data Collection income in 2025 and are on track to exceed this in 2026, providing essential funding for research that will have real-world impact.

Given all of these investments, achievements and hard work by so many colleagues – it was most satisfying to see our impact recognised in the 2026 Times Higher Education Sustainability Impact Rankings. La Trobe ranked second in Australia for our contributions to Good Health and Wellbeing, and Gender Equality. Overall, we ranked top 10 in the world for three Sustainable Development Goals and the top 50 for another three. This is an extraordinary result reflecting our values and commitment to communities, for which we should all be proud.

Our people live these values every day – something that was evident in the incredible support for our end-of-financial-year campaign to help students experiencing food insecurity and cost-of-living pressures. $107,334 was raised to fund 96 student bursaries, a 58 per cent increase on last year's campaign. Thank you to everyone who contributed to making such a meaningful difference to our students' lives.

I'd now like to share some other recent achievements and highlights from across our campuses.

Regional highlights

Last week, I joined the Chancellor and colleagues from our Bendigo campus at an event celebrating planning approval for our $50 million development that will deliver a sustainable 220-bed student accommodation facility in the Bendigo CBD.

This significant investment, which the Chancellor noted is “big for Bendigo”, will support student growth in line with our Regional Growth and Innovation 2030 Strategy. I am very grateful to the Holsworth family, whose generosity and longstanding support of La Trobe Bendigo is enabling this project.

In Albury-Wodonga, our campus recently presented public events connecting researchers with the community. The campus hosted the annual La Trobe Rural Health School research conference Intersections of Place, People and Health: Local Solutions for Regional Challenges, which brought together researchers, clinicians, health service leaders, community organisations, industry partners, and students to discuss solutions to regional health challenges that are grounded in local knowledge and connections. And the John Richards Centre for Rural Ageing Research annual oration was delivered by Australia’s Age Discrimination Commissioner Robert Fitzgerald AM, who considered challenges and opportunities of the nation’s rapidly ageing population.

Another highlight is the fantastic University pop-up at Myer Centrepoint in Albury. Congratulations to Ged Bourke and his team on creating this retail presence to give La Trobe a strong profile in one of Albury's busiest shopping centres and make it easier for prospective students and the community to connect with the University.

Health innovation

We have reached some major milestones reflecting our investments and expertise in health innovation.

We were fortunate to have Federal Education Minister Jason Clare and Victorian Deputy Premier Ben Carroll officiate at the launch of the $82 million La Trobe Health Clinic on the Bundoora campus, which will train an extra 400 allied professionals a year and provide accessible and affordable health services for the fast-growing population in Melbourne’s north.

Victorian Minister for Economic Growth and Jobs Steve Dimopoulos attended a naming ceremony for two BioNTainer units, which were named in consultation with local Traditional Owners, the Wurundjeri People. The units can be deployed quickly and support flexible manufacturing of next generation mRNA vaccines and treatments for clinical trials, marking a significant step in development of the BioNTech facility and bio-innovation precinct being established at La Trobe.

La Trobe’s Olga Tennison Autism Research Centre (OTARC), the leading national centre dedicated to autism research, will be home to a new $15 million Australian Autism Knowledge Hub that will translate research evidence into practice with funding from the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing.

And Rainbow Health Australia, a program of the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society at La Trobe, is leading a $2.1 million project funded by the Victorian Government to prevent family and gender-based violence against Victoria’s LGBTIQA+ communities; while Erica Randle and David Fleming-Muñoz have won VicHealth Impact Research Grants that support projects aimed at strengthening community wellbeing, equity and resilience.

Congratulations to everyone involved in these projects that exemplify the impact of our health innovation program in addressing health workforce shortages and advancing research innovation.

From the Press

The next title from the La Trobe University Press is a timely examination of Australia’s relationship with Pacific Island nations. In Neighbours: Australia and the Pacific, Joanne Wallis and Jack Corbett trace Australia’s history and foreign policy in the Pacific Islands to present a new vision for our relationship with the region.

The last La Trobe University Press title, Desmond Manderson’s High Time: How Australia Changed Its Mind About Illegal Drugs, was the Australian Book Review’s book of the week. Desmond was also interviewed by David Marr on ABC Radio’s Late Night Live. You can listen here.

Upcoming events

On 16 July, Patrick Humbert from the La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science (LIMS) is leading the Inaugural National Space Biomedical Research Symposium with Kate Poole from UNSW and Li Shean Toh from Monash University. Hosted at La Trobe’s city campus, the symposium will explore the potential to generate novel applications from biomedical research undertaken in space. Registration details are here.

On 20 July, La Trobe Asia is presenting a discussion on The Real Costs of AUKUS that will also serve as the launch of the latest issue of Australian Foreign Affairs. Bec Strating will join Peter Khalil MP, Assistant Minister for Defence, Yee-Fui Ng from Monash University and Samuel Bashfield from La Trobe’s Centre for Global Security to consider the costs, risks and strategic trade-offs involved in the AUKUS project. You can book to attend in-person at La Trobe’s city campus or register to attend online.

On 22 and 23 July, the University is collaborating with Cisco and the Australian High Commission (AusTrade), to present a two-day innovation sprint in New Delhi that will explore how AI technologies can develop practical, data-driven solutions for disaster management in urban environments. More information is available here.

Closer to home, the Industry Engagement Innovation Series is bringing together leaders from Energy Safe Victoria, Cirka, Aglantis and Core dna on 22 July to explore innovative applications of AI. This event also marks the launch of the La Trobe AI Institute that will showcase La Trobe’s AI capabilities and impact and integrate our AI research, education and industry engagement activity.

The 25th GS Watson Public Lecture will be presented at the Bendigo campus on 22 July. Emeritus Professor Terence Mills will explore the life, mathematics and ideas of influential British economist John Maynard Keynes. Registration details are here.

Further ahead, applications are open for the Care Economy Innovation Sprint being presented in conjunction with aged care provider Benetas at our Eagleworks Innovation Centre on 13 and 14 August. This is an opportunity to collaborate with students, recent alumni, and industry experts from Benetas to develop innovative solutions to workforce challenges in Australia's aged care sector. You can apply here.

In closing

The 2026 Open Day series will be held across our campuses during August. As our largest annual student recruitment event, Open Day is an opportunity to show prospective students and their families why La Trobe is a great place to study.

Huge thanks in advance to those colleagues from across our University who are supporting this massive collective effort. I look forward to experiencing the energy across our campuses during this year's Open Day series.

Best wishes,
Theo