Murdoch University was founded as a research-based university in 1973. The original Act of Parliament required Murdoch University to "encourage and undertake research and to meet the needs of the community". In 2002 Murdoch University retained its position as one of the leading research universities in Australia, ranking in the top 12 on a per capita basis.

Expenditure on research exceeded $50 million in 2002 including internal and external sources. An increase of 29% of research income for 2002 meant Murdoch University attracted almost $25 million in research funding.

As we move through the 21st century Murdoch University’s continuing objectives will be:

• To maintain a productive research culture with particular areas of national and international strength.
• To attract talented post-graduate students and provide high quality training and supervision.
• To increase the University’s funding base for research.
  

Murdoch's key strategic document is the Research and Research Training Management Plan . This document is updated annually and highlights Murdoch's performance in the preceding year, as well as focusing on key goals in the coming years.

Divisions

Murdoch University has three Divisions, (Arts; Science and Engineering; and Health Sciences) and a number of leading research centres and institutes. Major research centres include the A.J. Parker Co-operative Research Centre for Hydrometallurgy, the Australian Centre for Renewable Energy, the State Agricultural Biotechnology Centre, Centre for High Throughput Agricultural Genetic Analysis (CHAGA), Australian Centre for Necrotrophic Fungal Pathogens (ACNFP), the Asia Research Centre, the Asia Pacific Intellectual Property Law Institute, the Institute for Environmental Science, the Institute for Science and Technology Policy and the Centre for Rhizobium Studies. Murdoch is a participant in a range of inter-institutional research centres, including the Co-operative Research Centre for Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture, the Centre for Research on Women, and the Australian Institute of Education. There are many other research centres and institutes based within the Divisions.

Division of Arts

The Division of Arts was formed in 2003 with the amalgamation of the Divisions of Social Sciences, Humanities and Education (SSHE), and the Division of Business, Information Technology and Law (BITL). The Division now comprises the Schools of: Education, Media Communications and Culture, Arts, Asian Studies, the Institute of Sustainability and Technology Policy, Social Inquiry, the Murdoch Business School, Law, Information Technology, Politics and International Studies and the Asia Research Centre.

The Division has a variety of major resources available to enhance postgraduate research including audio and video production facilities, a theatre, computing laboratories, a driving simulator and a satellite reception and viewing facility, and the state of the art Interactive Television Research Institute.

Division of Science and Engineering

The Division of Science offers an active research environment, with an integrated interdisciplinary approach to research and exciting world class offerings in biological sciences, biotechnology, chemistry, environmental science, instrumentation and control engineering, mathematics and statistics, mineral science, physics and software engineering. It consistently attracts over 33% of its total budget from competitive grant schemes and external contracts and this research activity is uniformly spread across the Division. The A.J. Parker Cooperative Research Centre for Hydrometallurgy, the Australian Centre for Renewable Energy, the Institute for Environmental Science, the State Agricultural Biotechnology Centre, the Energy Research Institute and the Centre for Rhizobium Studies are all hosted within the Division. A significant contribution is also made towards the activities of the Co-operative Research Centre for Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture and the Centre for Atomic, Molecular and Surface Physics.

The Division has access to aircraft, an aquarium, mammalian/marsupial yards, an aviary, an insectary, glasshouses, growth chambers and a shade house, research boats, and a variety of analytical equipment including AA, HPLC, ICP, electron microscopes, DNA sequencer and a doppler acoustic sonar. Major items of research equipment available to the Division include: transmission and scanning (with EDAX) electron microscopes; UHV surface science facilities including LEED, AES, XPS, TDS, APECS, SPV, STM, AFM and infra-red reflection spectrometer; AKUFVE solvent extraction equipment; a wide variety of electrochemical equipment; TAM, LKB and Hart solution calorimeters, Picker flow calorimeter and densimeter; Siemens and Phillips XRD units; a variety of IR, UV, VIS, and AA spectrophotometers including FTIR, NMR (300 Mhz Bruker) and Mössbauer spectrometers; HPLC and gas chromatographs; purpose built mineral processing, hydrometallurgy and pyrometallurgy equipment and mass spectrometers.

Division of Health Sciences

In 2003 the School of Psychology joined the Division of Veterinary and Biomedical Science to become the Division of Health Sciences, which also incorporates the recently established School of Chiropractic.

The Division of Health Sciences major research areas currently focus on the areas of Animal Virology, Immunology, Inland Aquaculture, Molecular Epidemiology, Molecular Neurobiology, Parasitology and Psychology. A broad range of research techniques can be applied within the Division and the lack of departmental restraints allows interdisciplinary research. Staff from disciplines in pre-clinical, para-clinical and clinical areas are encouraged to collaborate in research programmes and co-operative research is carried out with staff and postgraduate students of other Schools of the University, other institutions and industry.

The Division’s excellent facilities include research laboratories with support staff, a 40 hectare farm on campus and holding facilities for a wide range of animal species, including those native to Australia. Equipment is modern and includes facilities for both scanning and transmission electron microscopy; automated gas chromatography; scintillation and gamma counting; ultra-centrifugation; an ultra-cold laboratory; atomic absorption; dual beam UV/visible and double grating fluorescence spectrophotometry; physiological recording; biochemical analysis; ultrasound and radiography; molecular biology.

Research Income

An increase of 29% of research income meant Murdoch University attracted almost $25 million in research funding. Murdoch's continued high performance has also resulted in significant increases in government funding over the last two years.For 2004, Murdoch has attracted almost $1 million dollars more in Commonwealth Block Funding than in 2003 - a remarkable effort since the total pool of Commonwealth funds available to Universities has not increased.

Areas of Research Strength:

The University has focused and established its research strengths into six major areas, and one new emerging research strength. These research areas reflect the University's strengths and multi-disciplinary skills with a focus on issues of international significance:

Established Areas of Research Strength
Agricultural and Veterinary Biotechnology & Bioinformatics;
Contemporary Asia;
Hydrometallurgy;
Social Change and Social Equity;
Technologies and Policies for Sustainable Development;
Ecosystem Management and Restoration.

Emerging Areas of Research Strength
Interactive Media;
Learning, Leadership and Policy.

For more information phone Richard Barrett on 0207 958 5058 or send an inquiry to ozdegree@hobsons.co.uk