Living university
Can the collective power of universities – the great knowledge creators and early adopters – be channelled into creating a regenerative future?
Summary
Andrea Siodmok explores how universities can channel knowledge, culture and innovation to support regenerative futures. She explores how higher education can foster community and accelerate systemic change. Universities act as hubs for learning and early adoption of new ideas, with the capacity to link local action to global impact. By leveraging their networks, resources and influence, they can help students and researchers turn individual agency into wide-scale transformation.
As I dipped my toes into the emerald Pacific waters, I knew this moment would change me.
The sound of women singing a Fijian farewell song was all around as I boarded the Drua ‘Vola Siga’. Druas – double-hulled canoes built by the Indigenous people of Oceania, the Tawa-vanua – move with the ocean currents, sharing different island cultures and their stories. Many of these stories have been lost in time, but some endure.
In Oceania – where rising seas threaten not just land but entire ways of life – this legacy feels urgent. Oceania is on the edge, at the front line of the ecological crisis, grappling with the erosion of culture, sovereignty and place.
As part of the University of Fiji’s Drua Project, the Vola Siga sails between Fiji’s archipelago of islands, helping to preserve and revive the knowledge and language of Fiji’s Indigenous peoples. It is just one of many projects that epitomise the ‘Living University’ – recognising the vital role that universities can play in supporting human and planetary flourishing.
“The Vola Siga sails between Fiji’s archipelago of islands, helping to preserve and revive the knowledge and language of Fiji’s Indigenous peoples”
The university of the future
Universities are crucibles of new knowledge and innovation: dynamic hubs of learning, research and engagement. As institutions with long histories, they provide an anchor to hold steady among the changing tides of everyday politics and the 24-hour news cycle. They help us to recognise the challenges and opportunities of our time and see the value of the long view.
I am a professor at RMIT University in Melbourne and was previously chief impact officer at the RSA. I have been part of a small group of academics working with RSA Oceania to explore how universities can support the transition to a more just and sustainable economy – a regenerative future. In doing so, we look to meet the challenge of climate change in ways that foster community, nurture life and build resilience.
At the heart of this inquiry has been the acknowledgement that Indigenous peoples have been living in harmony with nature, and regenerating its potential, for thousands of generations. There is much that we can all learn from the plurality of views across the Eastern, Western, Northern and Southern hemispheres. Like the oceans, our global academic community is interconnected and without boundaries.
The RSA has long championed the value of regeneration in all its forms, both environmentally and socially. Across the RSA’s 271-year history the names might have changed, from preservation to conservation and from sustainability to regeneration; however, the core principles remain relatively constant – finding imaginative ways to live in balance with natural systems while also taking action as the world around us changes. Put simply, living in ways that give and not just take.
So, we ask in our new report ‘The Living University’: what does a university give back? How can a university be a force for positive change and a platform for accelerating regenerative approaches and practices? Universities have grown considerably over the last 40 years as the number of students has expanded. They have become unique places of cultural diversity – a microcosm of the world itself.
As sites of knowledge creation and exchange, they provide a space to critically reflect on cultural norms and explore ideas that have the potential to change the world. As early adopters, their power as thought-leaders is significant, particularly given the vast public monies invested in universities by governments to shape R&D agendas and support their social purpose. As place-based institutions with a localised social contract, universities have obligations to share their knowledge for the betterment of all.
“The collective power of universities is immense and could be better deployed”
Network of networks
Our report finds that universities have a critical role to play in facilitating a shift towards more regenerative, life-affirming cultures. In particular, it advocates for: building ecological and place-based knowledge, so that learners understand the interdependent relationship between humans and our planet; greater investment in bioregional infrastructure and living learning labs to support local collaboration and innovation; and support for international coalition building, for example through R&D tax credits as well as by encouraging cross-border collaborations.
The collective power of universities is immense and could be better deployed at a planetary governance level for systemic impact. We might think of this as the ‘network of networks’ effect.
We are at a pivotal moment. As we sit on the edge, peering towards the future, it is easy to become disorientated and lose sense of direction. However, while the belief in human progress as a uniting force behind globalisation may have faltered, our understanding of the power of new ideas and of individual agency to shape wide cultural change is more necessary now than ever.
Future inspiration
In 2026, RMIT will launch the Regenerative Futures Institute (RFI), inspired by the work of the RSA. The RFI is looking to create new knowledge and practice that can have a sustained and positive impact on people, places and the planet. RMIT, like the University of Fiji, is exploring what regeneration means in their context. Our report references many more. If we can join up this thinking and accelerate it through investment, we have the potential to transform our world for the better.
Since that moment on the drua, I have begun to understand more clearly the role universities can play in lifting the aspirations of students to make a difference on the things that matter. The power to change whole systems starts with individuals and, like all change, it can begin as a ripple but create great waves over time. I invite others to read the report and join the Living University inquiry to consider the role of universities in delivering human prosperity within planetary boundaries.
Professor Naomi Stead, Professor Wendy Steele and Professor Chris Speed from RMIT also contributed to the article, along with RSA Oceania Director, Philipa Duthie.
Andrea Siodmok is Dean of the School of Design at RMIT, recipient of the RSA Bicentenary Medal (2015) and former Chief Impact Officer at the RSA.
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