Policy, Strategy and Impact

The Ngarara Willim Centre supports Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to reach their potential with a range of study, living and cultural services.

This group has been created to work across the University and with stakeholders to position RMIT as a leading voice in the public discourse on issues affecting Indigenous communities.

The role of Indigenous Education and Engagement is crucial to building the vibrant culture of respect and participation that is central to RMIT’s Strategic Goals of inclusion, diversity and indigenous affairs.

RMIT Activator’s mission is simple: to deliver impact through entrepreneurship.

Through its programs, initiatives and open innovation collaborations, RMIT Activator is empowering and equipping the next generation of entrepreneurs and established ventures with the capabilities to realise their potential and make a tangible impact.

Recognised as Australia’s ESG Rising Star Award by UBI Global Innovation for Business Incubators and Accelerators, RMIT Activator is committed to helping aspiring founders, startups, and communities align its outcomes with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The PSI Capability team is the connectors of our incredible portfolio and plays a unique role in connecting PSI across RMIT's many various areas and aspects. 

They connect new starters to the ins and outs of RMIT access, knowledge and tech, staff with new learning and upskilling opportunities, and our RMIT community with all things government policy, updates, RMIT positioning and more. The team is also responsible for supporting Tom Bentley's calendar and work schedule to find time to connect our community members with him.

Clare Chick leads the Capability team and is the executor of the portfolio's risk management, budgeting, staffing and all official RMIT reporting requirements. 

Despite being a small team, the PSI Capability team is incredibly agile and efficient. It also includes the Government Relations team led by Cath Davis.

The Government Relations team liaises with all levels of state and federal government to pursue mutually beneficial outcomes that support RMIT's mission to support a resilient workforce with fulfilling career pathways. 

The team's important work also supports our Vice-Chancellor and all of the teams and Colleges across RMIT in their engagements with government, policy, and programs.

The Innovation Catalyst is a multi-disciplinary unit that works to realise, connect and scale new models for inclusive innovation through collaborative projects across healthcare, social impact and urban sustainability. 

Anchored to the City North Social Innovation Precinct development, the Innovation Catalyst is an engine for driving ecosystem collaboration. With a mission to address the complex challenges effecting communities across hyper-local, state-wide, national and global scales, the team activates and strengthens partnerships and communities of practise across Industry, Research Institutes, Start-ups, NGO’s, the City North community and the breadth of expertise and student talent found at RMIT. 

The Catalyst works across this ecosystem to deliver partnered projects that demonstrate the value of a inclusive innovation anchored in City North. These impact contributions include:

• Delivery of applied research
• Prototyping novel applications of digital technologies in healthcare, community co-design and engagement
• Formalising new models of innovation
• Development of cross-sector partnership models
• Innovation capability building for partner organisations
• Providing educational, WIL (Work integrated learning) and internship opportunities for RMIT students across a range of disciplines. 

Also home to RMIT-Cisco Health Transformation Lab and the RMIT-Cisco Sandbox – a digitally rich prototyping space used to pilot digital innovations in healthcare – the team holds a critical function in providing spaces for ideas and experimentation. 

The Lab serves as a resource for sectors with limited capacity to test and pilot new technologies, working models or innovation, due to incumbent demand pressures. In this way, the Innovation Catalyst and Health Transformation Lab, is an innovation partner for key sectors, aligned to areas of significant public and national interest. This includes but is not exclusive to, health and aged care, homelessness, data-informed urban strategies, and circular economic development. 

Recently, the RMIT-Cisco Health Transformation Lab was appointed as the National Industry Innovation Network (NIIN) Health Alliance Lead, to identify, prioritise and coordinate areas of highest priority and value to the alliance in healthcare and aged care, establish systems and processes that maximise opportunities for collaboration, and design and deliver an annual program of activities, including an annual trends report and health summit.

The team has developed anti-disciplinary approaches to healthcare innovation that centre creative arts in envisioning the future of health and robotics, looked into how communities respond to the public use of robots and helped to develop national vulnerability indices that provide publicly accessible data on housing precarity. They have facilitated the development of circular economic modelling possibilities for the City North infrastructure development and actively supported hospitals in delivering new models for patient care. 

Made up of seven specialists and a robot – the team has diverse expertise across mechatronics, data science, pioneer technologies, research, innovation and systems design, placemaking, and a robot called Spot that can paint, dance, deliver medical supplies and is an all-around good boy. 

The Lifelong Learning team is part of RMIT University's Policy, Strategy & Impact portfolio.

Led and staffed by powerhouse duo Iain Lockie and Victoria Kenworthy, the Lifelong Learning Unit (LLU) has a determined focus on advancing RMIT University’s systemic ambitions in lifelong learning.

Understanding learners’ needs and experiences, addressing equity gaps in tertiary education provision, and connecting learners more continuously and purposefully to social and economic opportunities is what gets us up in the morning!

The LLU has developed four areas of connected service provision in pursuit of this:

• Expert public policy research, analysis and advice,
• Partnered public policy design,
• Active prototyping of workforce solutions and tertiary education designs, and
• Thought leadership and lifelong learning network development with international reach.

The LLU played an already well-celebrated role in designing a more responsive and inclusive tertiary education system as a part of the Australian Universities Accord last year. The areas we are excited by and are advancing currently are:

• how to design and implement degree-level apprenticeships to support working-age learners,
• how to harmonise the tertiary education ‘system-infrastructure’ in support of more coherent [and lifelong] learning pathways,
• how to build up and sustain skills coalitions in support of priority workforces and learner cohorts, and
• how to understand and respond to the needs of working-age learners who have been traditionally underserved by tertiary education

RMIT Europe is the University's European hub based in Barcelona. Its focus is on expanding RMIT's reputation as a global university of technology, design and enterprise.

Strategy Office

The Strategy Office led the design and development of Knowledge with Action, RMIT’s strategy to 2031.

It now leads three-year horizon planning, including the Horizon 2 (2026-2028) roadmap, and supports strategy execution planning across the University.

The office supports the University by:

• providing strategic planning and delivery expertise for priority directions and actions
• advancing RMIT’s ambition to be a leader in emerging technologies, smart and sustainable cities, social innovation and regional collaboration
• providing strategic guidance to University leadership, portfolios and colleges, where required
• monitoring strategy implementation in partnership with RMIT’s Operations portfolio.

Contact: Nadia Mecoli, Director Strategy Office, nadia.mecoli@rmit.edu.au

Strategy Execution Team

Within the Strategy Office, the Strategy Execution Team supports the planning, governance and delivery of RMIT’s strategic priorities.

The team’s work includes:

• preparing roadmaps and the annual Strategic Execution Plan (SEP), including the Enterprise Scorecard KPIs, aligned to RMIT’s Knowledge with Action strategy and approved by Council
• supporting the review and approval of project concept briefs and business cases as part of the funding approval process, with more than 150 initiatives reviewed
• supporting sponsors and the planning community in the effective governance of key initiatives, including through sponsor induction and education
• reporting to the University Executive Committee (UEC) and Council on delivery against the Strategic Execution Plan, as well as preparing strategic project papers for UEC and the Infrastructure and Information Technology Committee (IITC)
• rebalancing the Strategic Investment Pool when circumstances change
• reviewing strategic initiatives after delivery, with more than 80 initiatives reviewed
• summarising review findings for UEC and IITC, including through a three-year optimisation paper.

As RMIT implements Horizon 2 (2026-2028) of Knowledge with Action and beyond, the Policy, Strategy and Impact portfolio will continue to strengthen its shared focus on advancing the University’s strategic priorities.

Contact: Karen Said, Strategy Planning Manager, and Raian Isaac, Associate Director Strategy Office, strategyexecution@rmit.edu.au

The Workforce Innovation and Development Institute (WIDI) is a part of the Policy, Strategy and Impact portfolio of RMIT University.

WIDI’s mission is to help build a strong community, supported by a diverse, skilled, responsive, healthy and innovative community & social services workforce. 

The team works in partnership with employers, workers, governments and educators to realise this shared mission. 

WIDI’s current focus areas are the on the delivery of pilot programs that create new pathways to training & employment; the development of workforce strategy; and the use of research & data to strengthen workforce planning & help guide policies & investment.

Australian Technology Network of Universities (ATN)

Established in 1999, The Australian Technology Network of Universities is a peak body and trusted leader in the higher-education sector.

ATN are the representative voice for Australia’s leading technology universities focused on enterprise, impact and finding solutions to issues facing our economy and society.

ATN actively works to shape positive policy outcomes and foster impactful research, while being dedicated to advancing equity, inclusion and social justice.