Policy, Strategy and Impact

The OVC delivers executive and advisory support to the Vice-Chancellor while engaging with a diverse array of stakeholders. This includes facilitating the Vice-Chancellor's interactions with the university community and external partners, overseeing executive administration, managing communications, coordinating events, and providing additional support services.

Facilitating and advising on the 'rhythm of the business' to enhance the flow of ideas and actions throughout the university, including providing guidance and secretariat support for the Vice-Chancellor's Executive.

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

The Australian APEC Study Centre (AASC) at RMIT University is a leading research and capacity building institution in the Asia Pacific region that drives the advocacy of APEC’s objectives. Since 2009, the AASC has worked within RMIT University to offer valuable global engagement, collaboration, and learning opportunities for academic and student cohorts.

The AASC supports APEC’s objectives of free and equitable trade and investment within the region. The 2024 APEC agenda seeks to empower people, especially those in vulnerable situations such as women and youth, SMEs, and informal enterprises, among others; that is, to give them the tools to participate in the benefits of the global economy in conditions of competitiveness and promoting their economic and social inclusion.

Alongside their thought leadership and policy advocacy, the Centre designs and delivers capacity building training for policymakers and regulators to create positive and sustainable economic, social and educational outcomes. The Centre also delivers secretariat services for the Australian private sector representatives on the APEC Business Advisory Council, and the Australian committee of PECC (Pacific Economic Cooperation Council) which is the leading academic voice in APEC.

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

The Strategy Office is dedicated to realising RMIT's strategy Knowledge With Action by 2031. Our focus includes: 

• Supporting specific Directions and Actions through strategic planning and delivery expertise.
• 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 alongside the Operations Portfolio. 

Specifically, the team works across the following elements of the University strategy: 

Goal 1: Build a coherent, connected lifelong learning system  

This includes working with the Education Portfolio and colleges to develop RMIT’s undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum architecture and supporting curriculum innovation and re-design.   

Action 3.2: Develop new workforce solutions  

Working across RMIT to define focus sectors facing high demand or disruption. Supporting teams to test and scale innovative education solutions, including work-based learning pathways, short-form learning and professional development with government and industry partners. Working with our PSI colleagues to develop skills policy advice for government.

Action 3.4: Use key RMIT locations as platforms for common growth  

Progressing the implementation of RMIT’s City North Social Innovation Precinct and developing strategic opportunities for Bundoora and other locations. 

Goal 4: Be a leading university of impact in the Asia Pacific 

Supporting our regional collaboration ambitions in the Asia Pacific region, working alongside fellow PSI teams and the International & Engagement Portfolio. Leading the development of RMIT’s Singapore Country Commitment.  

The Strategy Execution (SX) team has been working as part of the PGP team for the last 5+ years focused on:

• Preparation and approval of the Strategic Execution Plans (was Annual Operating Plans) – 5 council approved plans
• Supporting and approving project concept briefs and business cases as part of the funding approval process – 150+ initiatives reviewed
• Supporting sponsors and planning community in the effective governance of key initiatives – sponsor induction/education program
• Reporting to VCE/council on the status of our delivery against the SEP – primary point of knowledge for VCE/IITC papers on strategic projects
• Rebalancing the Strategic investment pool when things change e.g. COVID, Re-imagine, VHESIF, financial changes
• Reviewing the strategic initiatives post delivery – 80+ initiatives reviewed (Project Pi, Capitol Theatre, SAMs upgrade, IT Currency, Salesforce de-duplication)
• Summarising the findings from reviews to VCE/IITC – 3 years of optimisation paper

Going forward, the focus will remain similar; however, what is exciting is the joint focus with the PSI teams on RMIT's Knowledge with Action strategy.       

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.