Why Deakin is one of the 15 ‘fast moving’ research universities

Deakin vice-chancellor Iain Martin explains why his institution is one of the 15 ‘fast moving’ research universities.

Deakin University vice-chancellor Iain Martin.

Deakin University vice-chancellor Iain Martin says a key achievement of his institution has been to boost the benefit that its research brings to industry and the community, in addition to marking a mark via the traditional academic measure of number of publications and citations.

Martin says the university’s research income has more than doubled since 2019, with the biggest growth coming from industry and community-related investment. He sees that as an indicator Deakin researchers are succeeding in meeting broader needs, as well as excelling academically.

“Most of our successful research groups are actually really good at doing both at the same time,” Martin says. As an example he points to Deakin’s research into new materials. “There’s a lot of discovery-based work going on in the lab. But at the same time there’s an awful lot of industry-facing activity in the Geelong Future Economy Precinct,” he says.

One significant area of growth at Deakin is research into AI applications. “Looking at how you can use AI to shorten development cycles in manufacturing, how you can use AI to optimise movement in a number of other industrial processes, practical applications of AI in education and learning, it goes on,” Martin says.

Deakin’s research in robotics and autonomous systems, which was mainly concentrated on industry and defence, is now moving beyond that. For example, Martin points to a system that uses robotics to do ultrasound scans remotely at a distant hospital and interprets the scans at a central location. But he stresses research is not coming at the expense of students: “We’re growing that research expertise, but it is not coming at the cost of good educational outcomes.”