RF Newsletter #12 – Tuesday 21st July 2026
Dear Regenerating Futures Colleagues!
Nothing is constant except change. Everything flows.
Once again, we are experiencing a restructuring of the faculty research ecology and need to find our place within a new architecture. In thinking about the type of group we want to be going forward, we are returning to our core values. Our priorities are to maintain a diversity of colleagues from across disciplines, including our allied members, who come from so many different fields and locations. We value the relational work we do; being, learning and researching in community, both with and on Country. We value bringing people together in person and online and helping build research capacity through constructive conversations and collaborations (often international). We consider that the best opportunity to continue to work in this way will be as a School Research Group. There will still be some workload provision for co-leadership (WAM), and we would have the ability to apply for funding to support a curated selection of the Regenerating Futures strategies we have enjoyed over the past four years.
We would like to hear what our members think of this idea of nestling into the ecology as a school group, albeit one that also welcomes members from across the faculty as allies. Please feel free to email us your thoughts, and/or attend our upcoming Regenerator: The Slow Academic – Thursday 30th July @ 2pm – Zoom here. We plan to use this opportunity to take a breath and reconsider what is most important in being and becoming as academics. Regenerating Futures belongs to all of us, we welcome your thoughts on this next phase. This opportunity to think together comes as we prioritise the philosophies of slow academics.
Meanwhile, the great things keep coming in the RF.
On Thursday at 2pm we have the delightfully titled Futures Forum by Maurizio Toscano: “Dr. Machiavelli or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Climate Change” (details below).
We are very excited to present our first Strategic Action Symposium: EARTH next Friday, 31st July, 10am to 3pm at the Purpose Precinct in the Queen Victoria Market! We have a full program, ripe with activity to fully engage our hands and minds in the challenges and issues inherent in modern food systems, opportunities to intercept and ameliorate these issues, and provocations for how to embed this thinking in our teaching and research, and daily lives. We will explore existing, city and community scale responses through Purpose Precinct social enterprises and the impacts of these responses – the tonnes of food diverted from landfill to create nourishment where it is needed, via meaningful training opportunities for disadvantaged youth.
We will engage in a systems mapping activity to physically and symbolically represent some of the complexity of food-related challenges. We will develop skills and learn tricks and recipes to implement at home and in community. We will feast and discuss – nourishing our bodies and minds.
(Photo credits: Purpose Precinct 2026)
We will make pledges and hold ourselves accountable. And we will be documenting our practices in this and the following 3 Strategic Action Symposia, to report on the impact of this series and share the resources generated – the activities, recipes, guides and stories.
All equipment and materials will be provided; however, if you have innovative food uses or clever hacks we’d love for you to share these with us, and if you have a glut of produce coming out of your garden, or a stockpile of jars in the back of your cupboard, please bring some along.
We look forward to your company on this deep dive into how we feed ourselves in the Anthropocene, and how we can manage this system in better ways.
We will of course enjoy a delicious lunch together, while linking in with the Decolonising Reading Group that is being hosted online at lunchtime.
RSVP required for planning and catering (through the calendar invite or email us).
Coming up in August, we have On Country #2 Melbourne Climate Choir and EcoCentre Exploration – 11th August from 10 am to 3 pm – details below
There are plenty more research, learning and community engagement opportunities below; enjoy discovering something perfect for you at this time.
Best wishes,
Peta and Jo