COVID-19 is having an immense impact on the shape of our society. It is vital that governments, community leaders and other decision makers have access to the best information during the recovery. Our researchers will make a profound contribution toward that outcome.
Monash is mobilising expertise on healthy communities and urban renewal to support the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Professor Malcolm Sim, Professor Peter Whiteford, Associate Professor Genevieve Grant, Associate Professor Dennis Petrie
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
We are investigating changes in the way people work during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, and how these changes affect their physical and mental health. We are also interested in understanding the impact of work loss during the pandemic on people’s health and future employment.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Unemployment and work loss have been major economic and social impacts of the pandemic. Our study will provide unique data on people's employment and health status through the pandemic and during the recovery process, and enable us to understand the impact of government stimulus and employer actions on workers.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
We are investigating the impact that the Victorian Government’s direction to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic is having on Melbourne workers who have family responsibilities, as well as how employers are responding to flexible work arrangements to accommodate those responsibilities.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
At present there is not a great deal of data on how Melbourne employers are responding to requests by workers with family responsibilities for flexible work arrangements during the COVID-19 response. We hope our research will generate more insight in this area and contribute to important policy discussion and development that ensures the rights of workers with family responsibilities in Victoria are protected.
Goal 2: Zero hunger
The food and agriculture sector offers key solutions for development, and is central for hunger and poverty eradication.
Goal 3: Good health and well being
Ensuring healthy lives and promoting the well-being for all at all ages is essential to sustainable development.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
Melburnians’ use of open and green space, and interaction with the natural environment during the shutdown, and whether this has changed because of the closure of pubs, cafes and other entertainment venues.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
To define circumstances under which the “extinction of experience” – the diminution of human-nature interaction and alienation from natural environments and their wildlife – may be reversible. This will have profound implications for how we should design cities for liveability and wellbeing of inhabitants over coming decades.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
We want to understand the psychological consequences, both adverse and beneficial, of the COVID-19 restrictions for adults. We are investigating in what ways urban residents’ living circumstances, occupations, unpaid workloads, and experiences of COVID-19 and the restrictions are reflected in mental health problems and optimism.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Our research will inform public policies and strategies to promote mental health, and identify where and for whom additional services are needed to assist recovery and restoration of social and economic functioning of the community.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
The experiences of diverse young people participating in informal sports opportunities in parks, public and recreational spaces across Melbourne, and exploring the potential of informal sport as a site for re-establishing social connection as communities emerge from the post-COVID-19 lockdown.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
The research will contribute to understanding of how community sport can support physical, mental and social outcomes amongst diverse young people post-COVID-19 and the potential of informal sport as a more inclusive model of community sport, that can be supported across Melbourne as COVID-19 lockdowns ease. The study will also provide insights to inform future planning and development of recreational space capable of supporting increases in informal sport and physical activity participation.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
We are investigating the potential indirect effects of COVID-19 on the health of Melbourne residents, specifically arising from disruption to the health system and changes to health behaviour during the shutdown. This includes residents being afraid to attend healthcare facilities. The indirect effects of COVID-19 in terms of disease burden threatens to surpass that of COVID-19 itself.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
We expect that our research will help inform health service planning and policy during the recovery phase and for future pandemics. We also hope our work will contribute to greater public awareness and education about community health and behaviour.
Mr Mark Czeisler, Dr Melinda Jackson, Dr Elise Facer-Childs, Professor Sean Drummond
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
We are undertaking a wide-ranging survey to monitor changes occurring in the sleep patterns of Melburnians, as well as other behavioural changes, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Costs of inadequate sleep in Australia through lost productivity and impacts on wellbeing are estimated at more than $66 billion per year. COVID-19 and measures to control its spread have had very significant effects on peoples’ lifestyles and behaviours, including sleep patterns and work activity. By measuring how Melburnians’ sleeping habits have changed during the shutdown, we hope to cast more light on the extent to which changes in school and work patterns have affected sleep behaviour as well as mental health.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
We are exploring how clinical trials of new approaches to medical care may be delivered safely, and with careful adherence to the rigorous methodology and governance required of such studies, without the traditional requirement for regular and close physical contact between research teams and subjects.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
We expect our efforts will reveal innovations in the delivery of clinical trials to improve the equity of access to trials for participants who live far from centralized clinical research facilities.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
Our team is using a rapid version of the BehaviourWorks Australia Method (Explore, Deep Dive, Apply) to measure, diagnose and change Melburnians’ COVID-19 protective and everyday behaviours through the SCRUB project. We’ve unpacked when and why CBD workers intend to return to work in person, what measures would be effective in promoting public transport use, and most recently are exploring the influence of the July 2020 “testing blitz” on other COVID-19 protective behaviours such as physical distancing.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Each wave of the SCRUB survey is co-designed with the Victorian Government, so that it can answer urgent and important policy questions immediately, grow the influence of this “rigorous and responsive” approach to evidence-informed decision-making in the medium term, and generate rich longitudinal data that can be used to plan more effectively for future pandemics.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
My research is about the use of social media for sex during Melbourne’s pandemic-related lockdowns. Human connection and intimacy have always been important to us, and when we can’t meet people face to face, social media can become a way to compensate. So how do these different elements work during the COVID-19 response?
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
COVID-19 represents a period of unprecedented proscription on physical movement and public anxiety around physical contact. We already know that social media helps people to make connections and pursue their interests with others; my research will show how Melburnians use social media for these purposes during the shutdown. By exploring what social media sex practices and attitudes emerge under these conditions, I hope to cast light on emerging online forms of interaction likely to persist in our communities post-COVID.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
I am measuring social media sentiment during the pandemic, and mapping key topics and issues of concern for residents of metropolitan and regional areas during the different stages of the COVID-19 response.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Mapping social media users’ concerns will shed light on how citizens go online to seek out and share information during the COVID-19 response and provide a better understanding of the needs of the public during emergencies. This project will therefore help to strengthen the delivery and outreach of online support services in future crises.
Annika Molenaar, Eva Jenkins, Professor Linda Brennan (RMIT), Professor Dickson Lukose, Professor Geoff Webb
Summary
Persuasive language is often utilised on social media to connect with audiences in the hope that behaviours will change (i.e. purchase of new product or adoption of healthy eating). Exploration of the language used and potential persuasive language that could be used in the topic areas of 1) food security and 2) food waste is necessary. This project will provide an understanding of the current conversation on social media and what the future conversations could look like to enact positive change around nutrition-related topics such as food security and food waste. Our work will explore the sentiment and emotion of social media conversations across food and health-related topics (food insecurity and food waste) during the COVID-19 pandemic in Melbourne.
This project brings together the fields of nutrition science and AI under the auspices of the Monash Digital Nutrition Lab, within the Department of Nutrition, Dietetics and Food. Led by Dr Tracy McCaffrey, the team of public health nutritionists will collaborate with Prof Patrick Olivier’s Action Lab and Prof Dickson Lukose of the Monash Data Futures Institute (MFDI) to harness the power of AI to develop open-source systems for use in nutrition and dietetics settings.
Goal 4: Quality education
Obtaining a quality education is the foundation to improving people’s lives and sustainable development.
Emily Berger, Fiona May, Zoe Morris, Pascale Paradis, Dianne Summers and Gerald Wurf
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
We are identifying the online innovations developed by Melbourne schools to support children's mental health needs during the pandemic. Children's experiences and views of these innovations is also sought. These child-acceptable, online innovations will be matched against an evidence and implementation checklist and shared amongst our professional school networks.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
The universal nature of schools, which most children attend, makes them ideal sites for mental health promotion, prevention and early intervention. Nonetheless, many children miss out on those services due to stigma, lack of resources or disability. Online services have the potential to reach more young people, than face to face services. This research has the potential to re-imagine school based mental health services, promote access to all children and ultimately make schools better places.
Goal 5: Gender equality
Gender equality is not only a fundamental human right, but a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world.
Dr Naomi Pfitzner, Professor Jacqui True, Dr Kate Fitz-Gibbon
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
Measuring the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on violence against women in the home and the family, in public spaces (including transport) and on the frontline of healthcare.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Our research aims to shed light on the “shadow pandemic” of gender-based violence within and across diverse communities in Melbourne during the COVID-19 crisis, and what works best to prevent or respond to the violence at this time. We hope that our project will generate more attention, knowledge and action to make Melbourne city a safer place for everyone.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
We are investigating the impact that the Victorian Government’s direction to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic is having on Melbourne workers who have family responsibilities, as well as how employers are responding to flexible work arrangements to accommodate those responsibilities.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
At present there is not a great deal of data on how Melbourne employers are responding to requests by workers with family responsibilities for flexible work arrangements during the COVID-19 response. We hope our research will generate more insight in this area and contribute to important policy discussion and development that ensures the rights of workers with family responsibilities in Victoria are protected.
Goal 6: Clean water and sanitation
Clean, accessible water for all is an essential part of the world we want to live in.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
The Monash Water Group is undertaking research on many aspects related to the water infrastructure in Melbourne, including, but not limited to, stormwater and greywater management, stormwater harvesting, water quality monitoring and modelling, ecohydrology, urban water farming, resilience, water sensitive urban design, urban planning, and flood modelling and forecasting.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Through our research we wish to obtain a secure, safe and healthy water supply for Melbourne, and to build a resilient community.
Goal 7: Affordable and clean energy
Energy is central to nearly every major challenge and opportunity.
Associate Professor Guillaume Roger, Dr Gordon Leslie, Professor Simon Wilkie
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
How electricity is consumed in Melbourne (including who and where), the impact of COVID-19 on household and business electricity use, and what can be learned from the variation.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
By learning how different demographics and areas consume electricity during various times of day, and mapping these results against wholesale electricity prices, we hope to gain insight on which demographic groups benefit the most from transitioning to dynamic pricing - that is, from more closely aligning electricity prices and actual consumption.
Professor Marc Parlange, Dr Caroline Poulsen and Dr Chaoxun Hang
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
We are documenting the impacts of the shutdown and associated reductions of human activity on the Melbourne atmosphere. Using satellite imagery and surface meteorological and air quality data from the European Space Agency, Bureau of Metereology and Environment Protection Authority, we are examining the spatial and temporal variations of air pollution and temperature.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
We expect to see measurable reductions in emissions and associated concentrations of air pollutants along with reduced air temperatures as a result of reduced human activity (e.g. motor vehicle use and industry). Such important information will, for example, inform urban design to reduce impacts of urban heat and provide guidance on government policy to reduce urban air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
I am interested in the governance of urban sustainability transitions and in particular how social and institutional aspects of urban experimentation can accelerate change towards sustainable cities. We are developing an interdisciplinary program of work that mobilises university campuses and precincts such as the Monash Technology Precinct as critical sites for accelerating net zero transitions.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Through our research we hope to develop a verified, scalable and user-oriented transition management approach that enables precincts and cities globally to drive support for accelerating net zero transitions across energy, mobility and building sectors.
Goal 8: Decent work and economic growth
Sustainable economic growth will require societies to create the conditions that allow people to have quality jobs.
Professor Malcolm Sim, Professor Peter Whiteford, Associate Professor Genevieve Grant, Associate Professor Dennis Petrie
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
We are investigating changes in the way people work during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, and how these changes affect their physical and mental health. We are also interested in understanding the impact of work loss during the pandemic on people’s health and future employment.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Unemployment and work loss have been major economic and social impacts of the pandemic. Our study will provide unique data on people's employment and health status through the pandemic and during the recovery process, and enable us to understand the impact of government stimulus and employer actions on workers.
Associate Professor Liton Kamruzzaman, Alexa Gower, Deepti Silwal, Dalex Truong
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
We are mapping the geography and demographics of COVID 19-vulnerable employment areas in Australia’s five largest capital cities. We will then analyse the characteristics of vulnerable employment communities (residence of vulnerable workers) in Greater Melbourne.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Unlike other recessions, the economic effects related to COVID-19 are rooted in a service-sector recession. Policymakers therefore need to focus on building a more resilient and diverse job mix to support quality future employment opportunities. Our research aims to assist policymakers in assessing the risk of employment vulnerability as the impacts of the pandemic evolve. By looking at both employment areas as well as communities, we will be able to provide a more complete picture of the challenges facing vulnerable industries and workforces.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
Our team is using a rapid version of the BehaviourWorks Australia Method (Explore, Deep Dive, Apply) to measure, diagnose and change Melburnians’ COVID-19 protective and everyday behaviours through the SCRUB project. We’ve unpacked when and why CBD workers intend to return to work in person, what measures would be effective in promoting public transport use, and most recently are exploring the influence of the July 2020 “testing blitz” on other COVID-19 protective behaviours such as physical distancing.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Each wave of the SCRUB survey is co-designed with the Victorian Government, so that it can answer urgent and important policy questions immediately, grow the influence of this “rigorous and responsive” approach to evidence-informed decision-making in the medium term, and generate rich longitudinal data that can be used to plan more effectively for future pandemics.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
We are interviewing Melbourne’s street musicians to understand the impact of COVID-19 on the city’s gig economy, and to learn how performers are responding to the shutdown.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
By exploring the different approaches street musicians use to reach their audiences during the shutdown, we hope to build knowledge about how digital technologies may be used to safeguard buskers’ incomes and inform the future of their work.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
We are investigating the impact that the Victorian Government’s direction to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic is having on Melbourne workers who have family responsibilities, as well as how employers are responding to flexible work arrangements to accommodate those responsibilities.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
At present there is not a great deal of data on how Melbourne employers are responding to requests by workers with family responsibilities for flexible work arrangements during the COVID-19 response. We hope our research will generate more insight in this area and contribute to important policy discussion and development that ensures the rights of workers with family responsibilities in Victoria are protected.
Goal 9: Industry, innovation and infrastructure
Investments in infrastructure are crucial to achieving sustainable development.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
We are developing a digital model of Melbourne that maps the evolving impacts of COVID-19 on different places and communities of the city. Combining urban form with environment, demographic, health and economic data, the city model will be a platform to advance wider discussion on post-coronavirus recovery scenarios with city councils, state government and the community.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
By enhancing knowledge of the relationship between virus transmission, recovery, and various characteristics of urban form, our work will assist in targeting resources and preparing communities vulnerable to COVID-19 and future societal disruptions. Explaining where and under what conditions future outbreaks will most likely occur – and understanding development alternatives – is essential to assist health and urban policymakers to track and plan for future epidemics.
Dr Taru Jain, Dr Laura McCarthy, Ms Laura Aston, The Victorian Department of Transport
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
Travel and activity patterns of Melbourne residents due to the COVID-19 shutdown to understand how this might influence long-term travel behaviour in Melbourne. A key concern is Melbourne's $32 billion ‘big build’ infrastructure program; is this still going to be needed?
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Our research is guiding decision-making on the ‘big build’ transport investment program, but will also contribute to our understanding of travel behaviour change associated with significant social and economic disruptions.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
The Monash Water Group is undertaking research on many aspects related to the water infrastructure in Melbourne, including, but not limited to, stormwater and greywater management, stormwater harvesting, water quality monitoring and modelling, ecohydrology, urban water farming, resilience, water sensitive urban design, urban planning, and flood modelling and forecasting.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Through our research we wish to obtain a secure, safe and healthy water supply for Melbourne, and to build a resilient community.
Associate Professor Genevieve Grant, Associate Professor Jacqui Horan
Collaborators
Professor Bryan Horrigan
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
The transition to remote online dispute resolution, court proceedings and other justice system innovations, with particular focus on the public infrastructure invested in the Melbourne CBD legal and judicial precincts during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, supported by Monash Law’s CBD presence and its technologically enabled Moot Court.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Our research will contribute to improvements in cost-efficient, publicly effective governance and regulation of access to justice for all participants and users in Victoria’s judicial system.
Professor Marc Parlange, Dr Caroline Poulsen and Dr Chaoxun Hang
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
We are documenting the impacts of the shutdown and associated reductions of human activity on the Melbourne atmosphere. Using satellite imagery and surface meteorological and air quality data from the European Space Agency, Bureau of Metereology and Environment Protection Authority, we are examining the spatial and temporal variations of air pollution and temperature.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
We expect to see measurable reductions in emissions and associated concentrations of air pollutants along with reduced air temperatures as a result of reduced human activity (e.g. motor vehicle use and industry). Such important information will, for example, inform urban design to reduce impacts of urban heat and provide guidance on government policy to reduce urban air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
I am interested in the governance of urban sustainability transitions and in particular how social and institutional aspects of urban experimentation can accelerate change towards sustainable cities. We are developing an interdisciplinary program of work that mobilises university campuses and precincts such as the Monash Technology Precinct as critical sites for accelerating net zero transitions.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Through our research we hope to develop a verified, scalable and user-oriented transition management approach that enables precincts and cities globally to drive support for accelerating net zero transitions across energy, mobility and building sectors.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
We are interviewing Melbourne’s street musicians to understand the impact of COVID-19 on the city’s gig economy, and to learn how performers are responding to the shutdown.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
By exploring the different approaches street musicians use to reach their audiences during the shutdown, we hope to build knowledge about how digital technologies may be used to safeguard buskers’ incomes and inform the future of their work.
Associate Professor Lionel Frost Associate Professor Seamus O'Hanlon Dr Lee-Anne Khor
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
We are studying the historic evolution of Melbourne’s inner, middle, and outer suburbs as a means of informing decisions about how we might make urban sprawl ‘work’. Our analysis will divide the evolving form of the city into temporal and geographic components; the older higher density public transport oriented inner ring, the car-based post-war suburban middle ring, and the more recent mixed-form and master-planned outer.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Much housing redevelopment in suburban Melbourne is piecemeal, combining the worst aspects of sprawl without the benefits of privacy, space, and environmentally sensitive spaces that well-thought out suburban development can offer. We believe a broader examination of Melbourne’s suburban regions offers the opportunity to inform planning and policy development, through identification of the lessons of past development. This will contribute to the release of latent economic and urban potential in National Employment and Innovation Clusters and in turn the sustainable rejuvenation of middle suburbs more generally.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
I am measuring social media sentiment during the pandemic, and mapping key topics and issues of concern for residents of metropolitan and regional areas during the different stages of the COVID-19 response.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Mapping social media users’ concerns will shed light on how citizens go online to seek out and share information during the COVID-19 response and provide a better understanding of the needs of the public during emergencies. This project will therefore help to strengthen the delivery and outreach of online support services in future crises.
Goal 10: Reduced inequalities
To reduce inequalities, policies should be universal in principle, paying attention to the needs of disadvantaged and marginalized populations.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
How face recognition technology (FRT) is being used in Melbourne during and beyond the COVID-19 situation. The introduction of social distancing, increased wearing of face masks and changing use of city spaces all put a new complexion on this biometric tool.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Legal concerns about FRT centre on privacy issues and the disproportionate impact on already marginalised groups, as well as its reliability. My research will provide insights on how and against whom face recognition technology is used in Melbourne, as well as how COVID-19 is affecting the choice and use of policing surveillance tools more broadly.
Emily Berger, Fiona May, Zoe Morris, Pascale Paradis, Dianne Summers and Gerald Wurf
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
We are identifying the online innovations developed by Melbourne schools to support children's mental health needs during the pandemic. Children's experiences and views of these innovations is also sought. These child-acceptable, online innovations will be matched against an evidence and implementation checklist and shared amongst our professional school networks.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
The universal nature of schools, which most children attend, makes them ideal sites for mental health promotion, prevention and early intervention. Nonetheless, many children miss out on those services due to stigma, lack of resources or disability. Online services have the potential to reach more young people, than face to face services. This research has the potential to re-imagine school based mental health services, promote access to all children and ultimately make schools better places.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
We are investigating the impact that the Victorian Government’s direction to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic is having on Melbourne workers who have family responsibilities, as well as how employers are responding to flexible work arrangements to accommodate those responsibilities.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
At present there is not a great deal of data on how Melbourne employers are responding to requests by workers with family responsibilities for flexible work arrangements during the COVID-19 response. We hope our research will generate more insight in this area and contribute to important policy discussion and development that ensures the rights of workers with family responsibilities in Victoria are protected.
Goal 11: Sustainable cities and communities
There needs to be a future in which cities provide opportunities for all, with access to basic services, energy, housing, transportation and more.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
Melburnians’ use of open and green space, and interaction with the natural environment during the shutdown, and whether this has changed because of the closure of pubs, cafes and other entertainment venues.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
To define circumstances under which the “extinction of experience” – the diminution of human-nature interaction and alienation from natural environments and their wildlife – may be reversible. This will have profound implications for how we should design cities for liveability and wellbeing of inhabitants over coming decades.
Dr Taru Jain, Dr Laura McCarthy, Ms Laura Aston, The Victorian Department of Transport
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
Travel and activity patterns of Melbourne residents due to the COVID-19 shutdown to understand how this might influence long-term travel behaviour in Melbourne. A key concern is Melbourne's $32 billion ‘big build’ infrastructure program; is this still going to be needed?
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Our research is guiding decision-making on the ‘big build’ transport investment program, but will also contribute to our understanding of travel behaviour change associated with significant social and economic disruptions.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
We are developing a digital model of Melbourne that maps the evolving impacts of COVID-19 on different places and communities of the city. Combining urban form with environment, demographic, health and economic data, the city model will be a platform to advance wider discussion on post-coronavirus recovery scenarios with city councils, state government and the community.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
By enhancing knowledge of the relationship between virus transmission, recovery, and various characteristics of urban form, our work will assist in targeting resources and preparing communities vulnerable to COVID-19 and future societal disruptions. Explaining where and under what conditions future outbreaks will most likely occur – and understanding development alternatives – is essential to assist health and urban policymakers to track and plan for future epidemics.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
The Monash Water Group is undertaking research on many aspects related to the water infrastructure in Melbourne, including, but not limited to, stormwater and greywater management, stormwater harvesting, water quality monitoring and modelling, ecohydrology, urban water farming, resilience, water sensitive urban design, urban planning, and flood modelling and forecasting.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Through our research we wish to obtain a secure, safe and healthy water supply for Melbourne, and to build a resilient community.
Associate Professor Guillaume Roger, Dr Gordon Leslie, Professor Simon Wilkie
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
How electricity is consumed in Melbourne (including who and where), the impact of COVID-19 on household and business electricity use, and what can be learned from the variation.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
By learning how different demographics and areas consume electricity during various times of day, and mapping these results against wholesale electricity prices, we hope to gain insight on which demographic groups benefit the most from transitioning to dynamic pricing - that is, from more closely aligning electricity prices and actual consumption.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
I am interested in the governance of urban sustainability transitions and in particular how social and institutional aspects of urban experimentation can accelerate change towards sustainable cities. We are developing an interdisciplinary program of work that mobilises university campuses and precincts such as the Monash Technology Precinct as critical sites for accelerating net zero transitions.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Through our research we hope to develop a verified, scalable and user-oriented transition management approach that enables precincts and cities globally to drive support for accelerating net zero transitions across energy, mobility and building sectors.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
Our team is using a rapid version of the BehaviourWorks Australia Method (Explore, Deep Dive, Apply) to measure, diagnose and change Melburnians’ COVID-19 protective and everyday behaviours through the SCRUB project. We’ve unpacked when and why CBD workers intend to return to work in person, what measures would be effective in promoting public transport use, and most recently are exploring the influence of the July 2020 “testing blitz” on other COVID-19 protective behaviours such as physical distancing.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Each wave of the SCRUB survey is co-designed with the Victorian Government, so that it can answer urgent and important policy questions immediately, grow the influence of this “rigorous and responsive” approach to evidence-informed decision-making in the medium term, and generate rich longitudinal data that can be used to plan more effectively for future pandemics.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
My research is about the use of social media for sex during Melbourne’s pandemic-related lockdowns. Human connection and intimacy have always been important to us, and when we can’t meet people face to face, social media can become a way to compensate. So how do these different elements work during the COVID-19 response?
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
COVID-19 represents a period of unprecedented proscription on physical movement and public anxiety around physical contact. We already know that social media helps people to make connections and pursue their interests with others; my research will show how Melburnians use social media for these purposes during the shutdown. By exploring what social media sex practices and attitudes emerge under these conditions, I hope to cast light on emerging online forms of interaction likely to persist in our communities post-COVID.
Associate Professor Lionel Frost Associate Professor Seamus O'Hanlon Dr Lee-Anne Khor
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
We are studying the historic evolution of Melbourne’s inner, middle, and outer suburbs as a means of informing decisions about how we might make urban sprawl ‘work’. Our analysis will divide the evolving form of the city into temporal and geographic components; the older higher density public transport oriented inner ring, the car-based post-war suburban middle ring, and the more recent mixed-form and master-planned outer.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Much housing redevelopment in suburban Melbourne is piecemeal, combining the worst aspects of sprawl without the benefits of privacy, space, and environmentally sensitive spaces that well-thought out suburban development can offer. We believe a broader examination of Melbourne’s suburban regions offers the opportunity to inform planning and policy development, through identification of the lessons of past development. This will contribute to the release of latent economic and urban potential in National Employment and Innovation Clusters and in turn the sustainable rejuvenation of middle suburbs more generally.
Associate Professor Guillaume Roger, Dr Gordon Leslie, Professor Simon Wilkie.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
How electricity is consumed in Melbourne (including who and where), the impact of COVID-19 on household and business electricity use, and what can be learned from the variation.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
By learning how different demographics and areas consume electricity during various times of day, and mapping these results against wholesale electricity prices, we hope to gain insight on which demographic groups benefit the most from transitioning to dynamic pricing - that is, from more closely aligning electricity prices and actual consumption.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
The Monash Water Group is undertaking research on many aspects related to the water infrastructure in Melbourne, including, but not limited to, stormwater and greywater management, stormwater harvesting, water quality monitoring and modelling, ecohydrology, urban water farming, resilience, water sensitive urban design, urban planning, and flood modelling and forecasting.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Through our research we wish to obtain a secure, safe and healthy water supply for Melbourne, and to build a resilient community.
Professor Marc Parlange, Dr Caroline Poulsen and Dr Chaoxun Hang
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
We are documenting the impacts of the shutdown and associated reductions of human activity on the Melbourne atmosphere. Using satellite imagery and surface meteorological and air quality data from the European Space Agency, Bureau of Metereology and Environment Protection Authority, we are examining the spatial and temporal variations of air pollution and temperature.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
We expect to see measurable reductions in emissions and associated concentrations of air pollutants along with reduced air temperatures as a result of reduced human activity (e.g. motor vehicle use and industry). Such important information will, for example, inform urban design to reduce impacts of urban heat and provide guidance on government policy to reduce urban air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
I am interested in the governance of urban sustainability transitions and in particular how social and institutional aspects of urban experimentation can accelerate change towards sustainable cities. We are developing an interdisciplinary program of work that mobilises university campuses and precincts such as the Monash Technology Precinct as critical sites for accelerating net zero transitions.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Through our research we hope to develop a verified, scalable and user-oriented transition management approach that enables precincts and cities globally to drive support for accelerating net zero transitions across energy, mobility and building sectors.
Goal 13: Climate action
Climate change is a global challenge that affects everyone, everywhere.
Associate Professor Guillaume Roger, Professor Simon Wilkie
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
How electricity is consumed in Melbourne (including who and where), the impact of COVID-19 on household and business electricity use, and what can be learned from the variation.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
By learning how different demographics and areas consume electricity during various times of day, and mapping these results against wholesale electricity prices, we hope to gain insight on which demographic groups benefit the most from transitioning to dynamic pricing - that is, from more closely aligning electricity prices and actual consumption.
Professor Marc Parlange, Dr Caroline Poulsen and Dr Chaoxun Hang
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
We are documenting the impacts of the shutdown and associated reductions of human activity on the Melbourne atmosphere. Using satellite imagery and surface meteorological and air quality data from the European Space Agency, Bureau of Metereology and Environment Protection Authority, we are examining the spatial and temporal variations of air pollution and temperature.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
We expect to see measurable reductions in emissions and associated concentrations of air pollutants along with reduced air temperatures as a result of reduced human activity (e.g. motor vehicle use and industry). Such important information will, for example, inform urban design to reduce impacts of urban heat and provide guidance on government policy to reduce urban air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
I am interested in the governance of urban sustainability transitions and in particular how social and institutional aspects of urban experimentation can accelerate change towards sustainable cities. We are developing an interdisciplinary program of work that mobilises university campuses and precincts such as the Monash Technology Precinct as critical sites for accelerating net zero transitions.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Through our research we hope to develop a verified, scalable and user-oriented transition management approach that enables precincts and cities globally to drive support for accelerating net zero transitions across energy, mobility and building sectors.
Goal 14: Life below water
Careful management of this essential global resource is a key feature of a sustainable future.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
The Monash Water Group is undertaking research on many aspects related to the water infrastructure in Melbourne, including, but not limited to, stormwater and greywater management, stormwater harvesting, water quality monitoring and modelling, ecohydrology, urban water farming, resilience, water sensitive urban design, urban planning, and flood modelling and forecasting.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Through our research we wish to obtain a secure, safe and healthy water supply for Melbourne, and to build a resilient community.
Goal 15: Life on land
Sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, halt biodiversity loss.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
Melburnians’ use of open and green space, and interaction with the natural environment during the shutdown, and whether this has changed because of the closure of pubs, cafes and other entertainment venues.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
To define circumstances under which the “extinction of experience” – the diminution of human-nature interaction and alienation from natural environments and their wildlife – may be reversible. This will have profound implications for how we should design cities for liveability and wellbeing of inhabitants over coming decades.
Goal 16: Peace, justice and strong institutions
Access to justice for all, and building effective, accountable institutions at all levels.
Dr Naomi Pfitzner, Professor Jacqui True, Dr Kate Fitz-Gibbon
Collaborators
Dr Kate Fitz-Gibbon, Dr Naomi Pfitzner
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
Measuring the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on violence against women in the home and the family, in public spaces (including transport) and on the frontline of healthcare.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Our research aims to shed light on the “shadow pandemic” of gender-based violence within and across diverse communities in Melbourne during the COVID-19 crisis, and what works best to prevent or respond to the violence at this time. We hope that our project will generate more attention, knowledge and action to make Melbourne city a safer place for everyone.
Associate Professor Genevieve Grant, Associate Professor Jacqui Horan
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
The transition to remote online dispute resolution, court proceedings and other justice system innovations, with particular focus on the public infrastructure invested in the Melbourne CBD legal and judicial precincts during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, supported by Monash Law’s CBD presence and its technologically enabled Moot Court.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Our research will contribute to improvements in cost-efficient, publicly effective governance and regulation of access to justice for all participants and users in Victoria’s judicial system.
What aspect or activity of Melbourne is the focus of your research?
How face recognition technology (FRT) is being used in Melbourne during and beyond the COVID-19 situation. The introduction of social distancing, increased wearing of face masks and changing use of city spaces all put a new complexion on this biometric tool.
What outcome and impact are you hoping your research will deliver?
Legal concerns about FRT centre on privacy issues and the disproportionate impact on already marginalised groups, as well as its reliability. My research will provide insights on how and against whom face recognition technology is used in Melbourne, as well as how COVID-19 is affecting the choice and use of policing surveillance tools more broadly.
Goal 17: Partnerships
Revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.
We would love to hear from Monash researchers investigating activities and elements of Melbourne’s urban environment during the COVID-19 shutdown.
send your enquiries and feedback relating to the Melbourne Experiment,
please contact Felix Gedye
Telephone: +61 3 9905 2720
Email: Felix.Gedye@monash.edu
