Informal Cities Lab project shines at the Engagement Australia Excellence Awards

The Revitalising Informal Settlements and their Environments (RISE) program was awarded an Engagement Australia Excellence Awards for Excellence in International Engagement.

The Awards is recognition of RISE as an initiative that showcases outstanding nation-building with innovation and far-reaching impact in the Australian community and economy.

RISE is a collaboration of a diverse interdisciplinary team led by the Monash Sustainable Development Institute (MSDI) including the Informal Cities Lab at Monash Art, Design and Architecture (MADA), as well as expertise from Monash University Faculties of Business and Economics, Engineering, Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Science and Monash University Malaysia. It is made up of researchers, communities, governments, local leaders and partner institutions, and includes experts in  landscape architecture, engineering, architecture, community development, hydrology and ecology.

Professor Diego Ramírez-Lovering, (RISE Director, Intervention) leads the Informal Cities Lab at Monash Art, Design and Architecture (MADA) and accepted the award with his colleague Professor Karin Leder (RISE Director Research) on behalf of the RISE Program Director Rebekah Brown (Monash DVCR).

Professor Ramírez-Lovering says, “receiving the award is truly humbling, and serves as a type of validation and recognition that university research can no longer pursue only  knowledge production, but must actively get involved in translation of this knowledge into accelerating impact in the communities that so desperately need it. In order to do this, we must actively  partner with industry, governments, and communities directly to accelerate and maximise this impact. This award recognises the importance and value of such partnerships.”

The Informal Cities Lab is leading the co-design process and engagement of the community in the endeavour to implement water sensitive revitalisation of informal settlements by introducing sanitation through green infrastructure such as constructed wetlands. The RISE program’s five objectives aim to deliver improvements in health and environment in a sustainable manner to empower communities locally and globally.

“The project, RISE (revitalising informal settlement and their environments), is a decade-long project, which looks at transforming the way in which informal settlement revitalisation is addressed. It has a focus on sanitation and water management  as globally, the lack of sanitation results in gastrointestinal disease that kills over 500,000 children every year. We are striving to produce a body of evidence that will transform the way in which sanitation and water management is delivered in these vulnerable contexts.”

The gala dinner was held in Sydney on 21 November 2022 where the Engagement Australia Excellence Awards winners were announced.

For more information about the program, visit the Informal Cities Lab or rise-program.org