Message from the Vice-Chancellor - dKin Times April 2021

Dear Deakin community,

Our University’s relationship with India is deep and enduring and it has been heartbreaking to see the impact of COVID-19 over the past few weeks. Our Deakin India team and many of our partners have been personally impacted by the pandemic. All our thoughts are with those affected and we will do whatever we can to support the team and our colleagues in India at this time.

It has been busy across the University, with online and on-campus activities that have involved a multitude in our community, including our many partners and alumni.

One of the ongoing challenges for a multi-faceted organisation like Deakin, is how to effectively communicate all this work and its impact, especially to our donor community and how their contributions really do enable much of it to happen.

To help us do this, we are excited to launch our inaugural annual donor impact report: The dKin Difference. We’re thrilled to see this come to life as a remarkable testimony of our activities. My thanks to the many individuals and organisations who have a tremendously positive impact on our communities through their support. This new report is a dynamic record of what we do, how we do it, and most importantly, the results. I hope you enjoy it.

We’ve held some high profile, significant events over the last few weeks.

In April we welcomed the Governor-General, His Excellency David Hurley AC to our Waurn Ponds Campus to launch a new research building at our Institute for Intelligent Systems Research and Innovation (IISRI). The facility is equipped with a Zone 4 capable classified secret-rated space, making Deakin the first university in Australia to provide a highly secure research environment suitable for the Department of Defence and the defence industry. His Excellency is also a proud Deakin alum, and as he observed in his speech, the first Governor-General with a degree from Deakin.

In March we hosted the Governor of Victoria, the Honourable Linda Dessau AC, who opened our new Law Building at Burwood. This is a truly impressive building that features five levels of flexible learning spaces and two levels of student support, and is a fitting new home for our Law School.

Recently, I was delighted to accept the role as new Chair of the Australian Technology Network of Universities (ATN). I’m greatly looking forward to the challenges and opportunities of this leadership role – it is a strong and highly cooperative network of our peers in the sector.

This edition also includes a series of articles reflecting on NIKERI’s achievements and its one year celebrations.

Please enjoy the read, it really is bursting with the energy from across the University – your University.

Best wishes,
Iain.

Vice-Chancellor
Deakin University