Monash celebrates its top ten discoveries and impacts of 2025
Monash is home to world-leading research and innovation, led and championed by its talented researchers, professional staff and graduate students. This week, our inaugural Top Ten Discoveries and Impacts Showcase highlighted some of the most extraordinary achievements from the University’s research ecosystem in 2025.
The ten research initiatives were selected through a University-wide process that drew from existing awards, research reports and faculty nominations, with a longlist refined by research leadership and final selections reviewed by an external panel of senior leaders from academia, industry and government. Each was chosen as an outstanding example of the University’s commitment to research excellence, ambition and global reach.
Professor Sharon Pickering, Vice-Chancellor and President of Monash University, said: “Research breakthroughs do not happen overnight – they take decades of knowledge-building and painstaking curiosity-driven work, supported by infrastructure, partnerships and community engagement.
This showcase represents an opportunity to celebrate the extraordinary people who drive this work forward and recognise their commitment to not just making a difference, but to making a difference that matters – to take on the complex social and technological challenges of our time.”
The selected initiatives stem from across the University, with representation from the Faculties of Science; Law; Engineering; Business and Economics; and Medicine, Nursing, and Health Sciences. The breakthroughs span diverse fields including health, clean energy, digital technologies and social change.
Health and biomedical advances selected for the showcase include a world-first hospital discharge of a patient with a durable total artificial heart; a new global standard for stem cell transplantation preventing graft-versus-host disease; and the mapping of the LYCHOS protein as a promising therapeutic target.
Breakthroughs in clean energy and sustainable industry were represented by Monash spinout ElectraLith’s waterless lithium extraction technology; a pathway to lower-cost green hydrogen; and a microalgae biorefinery process that converts captured industrial CO₂ into valuable pharmaceutical and agricultural products.
Highlights in digital technologies spanned the Monash IP Observatory, a world-first virtual instrument now used by the United Nations Human Rights Commission to monitor global internet freedom; and a predictive traffic light control system reducing congestion in Ho Chi Minh City by up to 20 per cent.
The showcase also highlighted research tackling medical bias and structural inequality, from a landmark clinical trial demonstrating that bacterial vaginosis is sexually transmissible – reshaping global treatment approaches – to national legal reform strengthening protections for victim-survivors of sexual violence across Australia.
Professor Robyn Ward AM, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Enterprise) and Senior Vice-President, said, “Together, these initiatives show the breadth of Monash research and the continuing impact of our research across health, technology, sustainability and society. Just as importantly, it reflects a research culture at Monash that values curiosity, collaboration and research that makes a real difference."
“Celebrating this work reminds us what’s possible when talented people come together across disciplines and fields - congratulations to all the teams.”
Dive deeper into the Top Ten Discoveries and Impacts of 2025