Introducing the Regen Melbourne Lab

The Regen Melbourne Lab (RM Lab) is a collaborative research initiative that brings together Melbourne’s universities and research organisations with the growing RM network of citizens, businesses and non-profit organisations. The purpose of the Lab is to explore and extend projects and experiments that grow Melbourne’s regenerative potential and contribute to wider learning and action. 

The inclusion of RM’s wide-ranging and cross-sector network into a place-based research process will help accelerate Melbourne’s transition towards a more regenerative future for our city by generating relevant insights and translating knowledge into action.

The RM Lab will be hosted by Regen Melbourne, in partnership with a growing number of Melbourne universities, and led by RM’s Research Lead Professor Lauren Rickards. The Lab will also partner with a range of international institutions, drawing on and contributing to similar place-based regenerative initiatives around the world.

Why This, Why Now?

The convergence of disruptive and interconnected challenges including the social and economic crisis brought on by COVID-19, rising social inequality and the climate and biodiversity emergency, demand transformative action. This has led to unprecedented buy-in from businesses and governments around the world to support a transformational agenda. Yet our current approach to knowledge generation, management and organisation does not adequately provide pathways for this urgent change, nor does it take advantage of the potential opportunities of this moment. 

Given the wicked and interconnected nature of our social, environmental and economic challenges, an uncoordinated innovation and knowledge system is a significant barrier to Melbourne’s progress towards a more regenerative future. In particular, the lack of a purposeful, place-based approach to research organisation in Melbourne leads to fragmented knowledge, lost opportunities for positive research impact, and a significant two-way gap between action and knowledge. 

The Connected Cities Lab Benchmarking Urban Exchanges (BEU) report in 2020, argues that fragmentation of urban knowledge is “an increasing challenge in cities internationally”. The result of “disconnected knowledge systems that are locked within disciplinary silos”. Such fragmentation  is unsurprising given the competitive nature of our economic system including  universities. Disconnects exist not only within universities and their academic disciplines, but between many other sectors and groups, including the social sector and public policy. As the BEU report argues, “Melbourne would benefit from collaborative approaches that bring together stakeholders from public, private, and academic sectors.”

Our Purpose

We believe in the power of research to help realise the regenerative potential of our city. This potential builds on a shared vision that guides impactful real-world projects and actions. The RM Lab brings together interested researchers and RM members to collaboratively use research to help progress our vision for Melbourne and within regenerative initiatives elsewhere. RM Lab will help synthesise, translate and apply existing research, as well as identify research needs, facilitate research funding opportunities, and foster necessary research collaboration.

Our Research Themes

The research themes of the Lab will be iteratively shaped by the Lab partners in collaboration with the RM network. As a starting point, four research themes have been identified: 

1. Exploring and extending emerging experiments that grow Melbourne’s regenerative potential and identifying positive pathways to action;

2. Exploring alternative paradigms and measures of progress for Melbourne and integrating these into a public facing collective measurement project; 

3. Exploring Indigenous ways of knowing and First Nations approaches as part of our regenerative future; and

4. Understanding systemic barriers, challenges, opportunities and adaptation pathways for our transition to a more regenerative future and identifying points of intervention for the network.

Modes of Work

The RM Lab will operate via various modes, including:

1. Brainstorm, prioritise, conduct and publish new collaborative empirical and conceptual research on emerging experiments that grow Melbourne’s regenerative potential;

2. Synthesise, translate and disseminate existing and new research, including via professional development offerings and media;

3. Work with practitioners to gather and share stories of research on Melbourne’s regeneration to foster innovation, learning and ideas; 

4. Convene forums and other events with research institutions and RM network members to accelerate the translation of knowledge into action and action into knowledge.

The Lab will create a space for researchers of all sorts to get involved and to identify shared interests and opportunities with potential partners from the wide RM network. Via an exciting RM Lab fellowship and scholarship scheme for early-mid career researchers and students, plus pro bono researcher involvement, the Lab will contribute to Regen Melbourne by broadening, deepening and systematising the research that underpins it, accelerating progress by drawing on insights from the research literature, and contributing to similar efforts worldwide.

Partners & People

The RM Lab seeks to bring together and stimulate and coordinate work across diverse universities and other research institutions. It is beginning with four founding partners:

• The Urban Futures Platform at RMIT University

• The Melbourne Centre for Cities at Melbourne University 

• The Centre for Urban Transitions at Swinburne University

• Monash Sustainable Development Institute at Monash University

To kick it off, the RM Lab is being led by the RM Research Lead Professor Lauren Rickards. Based at RMIT, Lauren is Director of the cross-university Urban Futures Platform, leads the Climate Resilience Living Lab and co-leads the Climate Change Transformations research program in the Center for Urban Research. Professor Rickards is also a Lead Author with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The RM Lab is supported by the RM core team, including Strategy and Policy Lead Kaj Löfgren. A Civil Engineer by training, with a Masters of Economic History, Kaj has worked across the non-profit, social enterprise and impact investment sectors for almost two decades and is also the Entrepreneur in Residence at Small Giants Academy. 

The RM Lab will also establish PhD positions that support the research themes above, and will embrace knowledge and researchers from people of diverse cultural backgrounds. The Lab will also invite cross-sector academics and students, industry leaders, and social innovators to join the Lab as Fellows.