November 2025

History is made

I’d like to begin by acknowledging a truly historic moment last Thursday, when Victoria became the first state in Australia to pass a treaty with Indigenous people. This landmark achievement opens the door to genuine partnership, shared decision-making, and the opportunity to embed more than 60,000 years of knowledge and culture into the future of our state.

As staff and faculty at La Trobe, we have a unique responsibility – and privilege – to listen, learn and work alongside Indigenous communities. Our collective efforts can deliver lasting outcomes in education, health and regional opportunity. In the coming months, we will be engaging with Indigenous leaders to identify ways our university can continue supporting reconciliation and foster meaningful collaboration, including through discussions with the Elders Council established under our Indigenous Strategy 2022-2030.

I extend my sincere gratitude to the First Peoples’ Assembly for their leadership and vision. Their work has enabled us all to take this profound step forward. I encourage each of you to reflect on how your role can contribute to reconciliation, and to seek opportunities within your teaching, research, and community engagement to honour this historic moment and advance our shared commitment.

Building for growth

I’m excited about the next chapter in our partnership with the Bangalore Bioinnovation Centre and the Indian Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council to deliver our Bio Innovation Corridor between India and Melbourne. We hosted a terrific celebration with a delegation from India at the Digital Innovation Hub last week, which recognised the top Indian biotech startups that participated in a pre-accelerator program run by the Innovation Corridor this year. From 2026, we’ll be hosting founders and start-ups from Bangalore on our Bundoora campus every year to collaborate and innovate in biotechnology, med-tech and ag-tech projects.

Closer to home, Minister for Skills and Training the Hon. Andrew Giles MP opened the Epping learning site of our Northern Study Hub last month, which supplements the Broadmeadows site that opened in August. Delivered by La Trobe in partnership with Hume City Council, Melbourne Polytechnic, City of Whittlesea, Whittlesea Community Connections, Broadmeadows Kangan Institute, and NORTH Link, the Hub is supporting readiness and aspiration for tertiary-level study across Melbourne’s fast-growing outer northern metropolitan region. The initiative is off to a brilliant start: we have exceeded our participant targets for 2025 with more than 200 students now registered across the two sites, 76 per cent of whom are studying at undergraduate or diploma levels offering pathways into tertiary studies.

La Trobe has been allocated significant growth in student places in 2026 by the Federal government. The Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC) has given us 9.3 per cent growth in our domestic student profile for next year. Our allocation of international onshore commencers has also been significantly increased from 4,100 to 4,800. These are outstanding results for La Trobe and represent a vote of confidence in our growth agenda and the importance of our mission to increase participation and access to higher education.

In other policy news, Minister for Education the Hon. Jason Clare MP has released the Final Report and Principles of the Expert Council on University Governance chaired by Melinda Cilento, CEO of the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA), which defines best practice principles for university governance and proposes measures including requiring university governing bodies to publish outcomes of meetings and decisions, consultancy spending, and their membership. The principles will be written into Commonwealth regulation through the Threshold Standards and universities will be required to report annually to TEQSA on compliance with the principles.

We welcome the opportunity to further enhance the governance of our University, and La Trobe will implement the new governance principles once the legislation is finalised. In the meantime, I’d like to mention some recent achievements and activities from across the University.

Discovery grants

It was brilliant to see 12 La Trobe researchers win a total of $7 million in funding under the ARC Discovery Project scheme that recognises the importance of fundamental ‘blue sky’ research. Overall, La Trobe was third in Victoria for this funding round – an outstanding result that is a credit to our fantastic researchers.

Congratulations to Alexander Pinto, Yuning Hong, Begoña Heras, Vanessa Kellermann, Ivan Poon, Jennifer McIntosh, Lucille Chapuis, Yuri Cath, Jason Dutton, Emma Robertson, Ruby Grant and Babak Dadvand on receiving funding. I look forward to learning about the impact of this research in the years to come.

I’d also like to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of La Trobe researchers who were unsuccessful in this ARC DP round, and wish these colleagues better success in future bids.

Education innovation

Two recent events have reinforced La Trobe’s standing as a national leader in educational innovation.

On 15 October, the Chancellor hosted the University’s annual expo at the Parliament of Victoria. We showcased La Trobe’s expertise and innovation in teacher education programs to Members of Parliament and Departmental representatives. Deputy Premier and Education Minister, the Hon. Ben Carroll MP, and Shadow Education Minister Evan Mulholland MP – both of whom are La Trobe alumni – gave speeches praising La Trobe for our leadership in advancing evidence-based approaches to teaching and for our innovative employment-based teacher training program Nexus.

On 22 October, I attended the Mornington Peninsula Foundation 2025 Oration that was delivered by Pam Snow from the School of Education. The oration was an excellent opportunity to showcase the work that Pam is leading at La Trobe with her colleague Tanya Serry. Pam and Tanya co-founded our brilliant SOLAR Lab and are conducting a series of projects to build teacher knowledge of the science of learning and improve reading outcomes for students. Pam and Tanya have, together, created immense momentum for positive change. As well as helping more than 12,500 educators adopt explicit teaching methods through the SOLAR Lab short courses, findings from their research have informed the introduction of evidence-based approaches to school teaching across Victoria and NSW.

We can all be proud of the way our School of Education is translating research into programs that have a tremendous impact in the community.

Health innovation

During October, we also showcased La Trobe’s health and care innovation and our work to address rural and regional health workforce shortages.

The Governor of Victoria, Her Excellency Professor the Honourable Margaret Gardner AC, visited our Bendigo campus on 16 October to tour the facilities at our new Rural Dentistry and Oral Health Clinical School and learn about La Trobe Rural Health School’s mission to strengthen health education and deliver high-quality care to communities across Victoria.

Renowned Australian chef, author, restaurateur and food manufacturer Maggie Beer AO presented the John Richards Centre for Rural Ageing Research Oration on 8 October. The Maggie Beer Foundation shares the Centre’s mission of translating research into practice that has a positive impact in the community and is delivering education and training to improve dining, food, and nutritional outcomes for older people in aged care.

Last month, we also celebrated 25 years of La Trobe’s Bachelor of Pharmacy in Bendigo. The course commenced with an intake of 25 students in 2000 and has gone on to produce more than 800 alumni who are working in clinical practice, policy, academia, and the pharmaceutical industry. Pleasingly, our graduates are known for their clinical skills, industry experience, work readiness, and experience in regional settings.

Going global

Congratulations to Bec Strating on her appointment as the inaugural Director of the newly established La Trobe University Centre for Global Security that will contribute to scholarship and shape public debate in Australia and internationally on key issues in global security. Bec has done an outstanding job as Director of La Trobe Asia since 2020 and has been influential in making the case for a holistic view of regional security through her book Girt by Sea: Re-Imagining Australia’s Security that was co-authored with Joanne Wallis and published by La Trobe University Press. La Trobe Asia is in very good hands, with Deputy Director (Research) Ruth Gamble stepping into the Director’s role.

Sustainable futures

I was pleased to attend the launch of the University’s ARC Industrial Transformation Research Hub for Protected Cropping on 23 October. Lisa Darmanin, Senator for Victoria, officiated at the launch with Hub Director Tony Bacic. The new Hub will enable Tony and his team to address current knowledge gaps so that horticultural production can be enhanced through optimal growing conditions and protecting crops from pests, diseases, and unfavourable climates. La Trobe is at the forefront of work to accelerate development of a specialised workforce at scale to develop Australia’s sovereign capacity in protected cropping, which is already the nation’s fastest-growing food-producing sector.

And well done to the team that manages our Nangak Tamboree eco-corridor on winning the Nature Positive category at the 2025 International Green Gown Awards. Nangak Tamboree has engaged more than 9,400 people through citizen science, education programs and events, while volunteers have contributed more than 4,600 hours to land management and seed collection. An important element in the project is a partnership with the Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation that helps to combine traditional land management practices with ecological science.

Literary lights

Congratulations to Clare Wright on winning the Australian Political Book of the Year Award for her important book Näku Dhäruk The Bark Petitions: How the People of Yirrkala Changed the Course of Australian Democracy. The final instalment in Clare’s ‘democracy trilogy’, the book has had a tremendous impact. It also won the Queensland Literary Awards Non-Fiction Book of the Year and the Northern Territory History Award, and has been shortlisted for numerous other literary prizes. It was also pleasing to see two books published by the La Trobe University Press longlisted for the Political Book of the Year Award: Ross Garnaut’s Let’s Tax Carbon and Shireen Morris’ Broken Heart: A True History of the Voice Referendum.

I’m looking forward to reading a collection of Dennis Altman’s essays from the last 50 years, which is being published on 1 December by Monash University Publishing. In Righting My World, Dennis’ essays serve as a reflection on his political, academic and literary life as a professor of politics and gay rights activist in the 50 years since the publication of his groundbreaking first book Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation in 1971. You can pre-order a copy of the collection here.

Upcoming events

On 13 November, La Trobe experts including Wei Xiang, Director of the Cisco-La Trobe Centre for AI, and Daswin De Silva from the Centre for Data Analytics and Cognition, are presenting an event at the Digital Innovation Hub in association with Darebin City Council to help businesses located in the City of Darebin gain a competitive edge in the age of AI. Information about eligibility and registration is available here.

La Trobe Asia is presenting two interesting discussions this month. On 20 November, Bec Strating will lead an online webinar with William Leben from the Development Intelligence Lab and Dr Natalie Sambhi from Verve Research about ways to prevent conflict in the Indo-Pacific. You can register here. Then, on 25 November, Dr Ian Storey, Senior Fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, will discuss his new book Putin’s Russia and Southeast Asia: The Kremlin’s Pivot to Asia and the Impact of the Russia-Ukraine War. You can join in person at the University’s City campus or register to attend online.

On 26 November, the School of Computing, Engineering and Mathematical Sciences is presenting its annual showcase of technology projects developed by final year students at Union Hall. With projects focussed on innovations in engineering, computer science, IT, and physics, the night includes a keynote from La Trobe software engineering alumnus Alex Talevski, CEO of global security company Swann Communications. You can register here.

In closing

Before I sign off, I’d like to encourage you to cast your vote for La Trobe’s Olga Tennison Autism Research Centre (OTARC), which is a finalist in The Community Champion category of this year’s Universities Australia Shaping Australia Awards. OTARC’s nomination recognises its deep commitment to centring Autistic voices in its work through co-design and community partnership. You can vote for OTARC here.

Finally, I hope to see you at our last ‘In Conversation’ all-staff webinar for the year on 12 November, when I will provide further updates on higher education policy and implementation of our Strategic Plan and take your questions on the day.

Best wishes,
Theo