The University of Melbourne

International vision

The University of Melbourne is international in character and focus and world class in the staff and students it attracts, the research and scholarship it produces, and its academic standards.

With 42,000 students and more than 6,000 fulltime and part-time staff, the university offers undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in a wide range of disciplines. Eleven faculties cover the major disciplines: architecture, building and planning; arts; economics and commerce; education; engineering; science; law; medicine, dentistry and health sciences; music; veterinary science; and land and food resources.

The university’s 19-hectare main campus is in Parkville, close to the centre of Melbourne. Among specialist campuses elsewhere are the rural campuses of the Faculty of Land and Food Resources, clinical campuses at major hospitals in Melbourne and Shepparton, and the Veterinary Science campus at Werribee. The Melbourne Business School and the Victorian College of the Arts are affiliated with the university. The university’s cultural assets include the extensive art collection housed in the award-winning Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne University Publishing and its high-quality imprint Miegunyah Press, and the Melbourne Theatre Company.

Global collaboration

Founded in 1853, the University of Melbourne has a long history of engagement in international academic collaboration at all levels of scholarly activity.

Close to 9,000 international students, from more than 90 countries, are studying at the university. Substantial numbers come from Malaysia, China, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, India, Hong Kong, Taiwan, North America and Japan, and there is growing interest from the United Kingdom, Germany and Africa.

The university is a foundation member of Universitas 21, an international consortium of leading research universities. It has about 70 university-level exchange agreements and numerous faculty-level agreements with related institutions associated with higher education around the world.

Eminent scholars

Internationalisation is crucial for the University of Melbourne, and fundamental to this is the recruitment and retention of staff and students of the highest quality, both locally and overseas.

The university has recruited four Nobel Laureates: Professors Peter Doherty and Bert Sakmann in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences and Professors Sir James Mirrlees and Sir Clive Granger in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce. These appointments were made under the university’s Eminent Scholars Scheme, which is designed to attract researchers and scholars of the highest calibre. Among other internationally recognised university staff are Professor Tim McCormack, Australian Red Cross Professor of International Humanitarian Law, and Professor Andrew Holmes, a world leader in polymer chemistry who has relocated his Cambridge University research team to Melbourne.

The university has 10 Federation Fellows, and its students are regularly represented as recipients of prestigious scholarships and prizes such as Rhodes scholarships, Endeavour awards, Fulbright scholarships, the Australian Student Prize, and the General Sir John Monash awards.


Excellence in strategic research

With research expenditure of more than $400 million a year, the University of Melbourne is Australia’s second-largest research organisation (after CSIRO, the Australian Government’s premier research institution). More than 40 per cent of research activities are in cross disciplinary areas, and the university’s areas of research leadership include advanced materials science and engineering; curriculum, learning and policy in education; economic and financial analysis; corporate regulation; fundamental sciences; historical studies; human and veterinary medicines; information, mathematical and communication sciences; neurological sciences; and plant and animal sciences.

The university has substantial international research collaboration networks, particularly in biomedical science and biotechnological research. Establishment of the Melbourne Centre for Water Research, the Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia and the Bio21 Molecular Science and Biotechnology Institute has increased the university’s research strengths and opportunities.

Examples of researchers’ recent breakthroughs are discovery of the enzyme that destroys cartilage in inflammatory arthritis; creation of a totally synthetic vaccine effective against viruses, harmful bacteria and tumours; discovery of ways to greatly improve regrowth of damaged spinal cord nerves; and a new technique for boosting the immune response to HIV. Melbourne researchers have found that stresses exerted on the Indo-Australian tectonic plate could be leading to its break-up, are leading an international knowledge-sharing network focused on protecting critical infrastructure from natural disasters and terrorist attacks, and are spearheading an interdisciplinary biomechanics research project dealing with musculoskeletal disorders.

Website: www.unimelb.edu.au

Organisational Structure: www.unimelb.edu.au/unisec/OrgCharts/