Codesigning New Models of Community-University Collaboration
How can universities nurture and develop partnerships that support community connection, belonging and health and wellbeing?
Universities have huge potential to drive social change and create impact through meaningful partnerships with communities, as well as with human and community services, government, philanthropy and business. But partnerships are too often limited in their potential, typically involving short-term projects rather than longer term commitments and not always reflecting principles of reciprocity and mutuality.
RMIT’s City North Social Innovation Precinct (CNSIP) initiative aims to transform a northern pocket of Melbourne’s CBD into a world leading social innovation precinct. The university’s vision is for the precinct to respond to demand for skills in priority sectors and contribute to Melbourne’s economic development and innovation landscape, through combining vocational and higher education, applied innovation, community engagement and industry collaboration.
RMIT is funding a number of projects through its City North Social Innovation Precinct Activation Fund to explore new ideas and partnerships that can bring their vision to life. The focus of these projects include student and community wellbeing, sustainable environments, creative practice, placemaking and belonging, applied innovation and prototyping in health and clean technologies, Indigenous voice and responsible practice, and civic data collaborations.
ThirdStory partnered with academics from RMIT’s Social Work and Human Services Cluster to investigate what universities might do differently to unlock the potential of community partnerships for social change and impact, through three targeted workshops that engaged diverse community stakeholders in shaping new ideas and ways of working together.
Starting with curiosity and diverse experience
Change begins with curiosity and imagination—the willingness to look beyond the familiar and entertain new possibilities. This project started with an horizon scan to explore different kinds of university-community partnerships from around the world. These leading-edge case studies served as inspiration to everyone involved in the co-design workshops that followed, and informed a draft set of principles for partnership working for testing and refinement.
Three creative workshops ran through February and March 2025, inviting people with lived experience to co-develop community-driven solutions. ‘Community’ in this project included people and groups who experience systemic marginalisation and exclusion, and people with lived and living experience of social challenges and harms. It also included international students who often live and work in the CBD and Precinct, and NGOs and service providers working in and around the area.
Each group engaged in focused discussions, reflecting on new ideas and successful models, and started to map out what support, structures and relationships would be needed to bring these ideas to life.
The insights from these sessions were then developed into a dynamic visual resource designed to spark investment, guide prototyping of new initiatives and inform longer-term strategies, translating insights into actionable elements for CNSIP’s aspirations.
Promising ideas to take forward
As well as a framework for collaborative partnerships, the project identified a range of specific ideas that could be prototyped as part of Precinct Development. These included:
A Centre for Lived Expertise that is a dedicated place for leading, growing and integrating this form of knowledge into service provision, research, design and policy-making.
A Community Clinic that majors in creative and social health solutions;
A 24/7 Student Community Centre for social connection and belonging;
A platform for facilitating placements/internships and workforce development initiatives to improve student career outcomes.
Across all of the workshops and individual ideas, what emerged was a vision for the Precinct as a hub of innovation in connection, belonging, health and wellbeing that develops and specialises in community-based and community-driven responses, and connects university and community partnerships in new and more powerful ways.
The project is the first step in a longer journey towards embedding community-university partnerships into the DNA of City North. As this work continues, it will shape the future of collaboration within RMIT and contribute to a broader shift in how universities engage with the world around them. City North has the potential to become a global leader in this space—a precinct where universities and communities actively co-create a better future together.
Learn more about the City North Social Innovation Precinct and the exploratory projects being funded so far in the 2024 City North Compendium – Driving Social Innovation in Place & Community.
Project team
Perrie Ballantyne Director, Collaboration and Systems Change
Tally Daphu Senior Project Lead
Katherine Johnson Dean, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT