About VEIL
About VEIL
The Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab (VEIL) seeks to identify and promote emerging technical, social and organisational innovations that could form part of future sustainable systems.
VEIL creates conditions to:
research, envision, innovate, create and test,
ideas and concepts for sustainable, desirable and realisable products, services, built environments and lifestyles.
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Program Director Prof. Chris Ryan ph 03 8344 9175 |
Chris has worked for over 30 years across various areas of science, technology, environmental policy and design, in projects that span the community sector, academia, government, international agencies and business. He is now Professor and Director of VEIL as a research unit within the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, University of Melbourne. >>Read more about Chris Ryan |
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Deputy Director Dr. Michael Trudgeon ph 03 9035 5464 |
Michael has taught from 1982 at RMIT University, Monash University, Swinburne and Melbourne University. He is an Adjunct Professor at the UTS School of Design in Sydney. Michael is the Design Director and a co-founder of Crowd Productions, founded in 1983 as a trans-disciplinary design practice. Michael teaches VEIL design studios at the University of Melbourne. |
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Policy Challenges Research Manager Kirsten Larsen ph 03 8344 9189 |
Kirsten's work focuses on increasing understanding and awareness of innovations to develop more sustainable and resilient food systems. This includes undertaking and publishing research on food supply and planning. With a background in strategic foresight and experience in the Victorian Government, Kirsten is a founding director of Eaterprises Australia and a board member of Cultivating Community and Transition Darebin. |
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Research Officer: Distributed Systems and Climate Adaptation Che Biggs ph 03 8344 062 |
Che's work focuses on the development of strategies and tools that build society's resilience to long-term sustainability challenges, in particular the need for new provision systems (for food, energy and water) that strengthen community capacity to adapt to resource scarcity and climate change while enhancing, rather than degrading natural capital. Che's background is in environmental science, management and policy. |
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Project Officer & Communications Kate Archdeacon ph 03 8344 9268 |
Kate works on a range of projects, co-designing workshops, publications, and exhibitions, and sharing ideas with design students at Melbourne Uni and RMIT throughout the semester. Kate manages the VEIL websites including the sustainability blogs, and gives presentations to community groups projects around the world that inspire a shift to sustainable living. Kate is currently undertaking an MPhil in urban agriculture at the University of Melbourne. |
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Websites Administrator Robert Eales ph 03 9035 58856 |
Rob maintains and develops all of the VEIL websites, which are the primary communication vector for the VEIL ideas and projects. The sites include Victorian Eco Innovation Lab, Sustainable Melbourne and Sustainable Cities and form an information network to convey the message of positive engagement in a low-carbon, low-fossil fuel future. Rob is currently completing a Research Masters of Industrial Design on the development of low carbon, sustainable, local manufacturing. |
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Project Assistant Jessica Bird ph 03 8344 91 |
Jessica conducts research and contributes to the design studios, getting involved with councils and communities, delivering exhibitions, and supporting the work of the VEIL team. Jessica's design education has influenced the way she works, often using systems and service design thinking when approaching projects, and working collaboratively to effect change. |
More about VEIL Research Fellows, Research Associates and Former Staff
VEIL was established by the Victorian government in Australia through the Victorian Sustainability Fund, as part of the government's Sustainability Action Statement, 2006. VEIL was first a project of the Australian Centre for Science Innovation and Society at the University of Melbourne. University partners include: Monash University, School of Design; RMIT University, School of Architecture and Design; Melbourne University, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning and the School of Land and Environment. Collaborating research groups include: Swinburne University Faculty of Design; LaTrobe University (Centre for Sustainable Regional Communities, Bendigo).
it depends ultimately on our ability to change direction.
We are in the early stages of a sustainability revolution. Climate change is forging a new global dialogue that may prove to be unlike anything before it in human history. That dialogue has already shifted from a focus on the scientific evidence of global warming to the need for urgent action.
What will be tested in the years to come is our ability to change direction.
Mitigating climate change (and adapting to a rise in global temperatures) points to an historic shift in the past trajectory of development. The transition to a sustainable economy, to a low carbon (and for Australia, a low water) economy, represents an unparalleled challenge to our systems of social and technical innovation. Incremental improvement – doing more efficiently what we currently do – will not be enough. We have only decades to transform the 'carbon' basis of our economy; the best current modelling suggests we will need a global reduction in annual CO2 production of between 60-80% (compared to current levels) by 2050. With such targets, we are not talking just about the re-construction of our world, but about its re-invention.
If ever we needed the spirit of entrepreneurial action, of creative destruction, it is now.
VEIL involves an evolving 'think-tank' referred to as 'the Hub'. At its core the Hub has design academics seconded from the design schools of Victorian Universities. Researchers from various academic and other institutions, representatives from industry, from government and environment and community groups, contribute to the deliberations of the Hub through a variety of structured processes.
The work of the Hub combines research, analysis, design speculation and evaluation, resulting in visions, concepts, reports and papers, identifying fruitful long-term (typically 25 year) scenarios for sustainable solutions (products, services, systems, life-styles, built environments and infrastructure). These long-term visions and eco-innovation ideas are also formulated as 'design studio' topics for the university design schools (and as student and design competitions). Through these design studios, ideas and visions are further researched and tested by hundreds of (final year) design students as part of their academic programs. (Diagram 2 below)
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