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The Australian Centre fostered world-leading research on the settler state, its culture, institutions, sovereignty and identities across several different disciplines, including history, sociology, literature, politics, visual arts and anthropology.
ANNOUNCEMENT
The Australian Centre was established in 1989 to promote research and education excellence in Australian culture. This has included interdisciplinary scholarship and community engagement through research and programs focused on critical, anti-colonial studies of Australian society, history, and Indigenous-settler relations.
The Australian Centre closed at the end of 2025. Content on this website relating to the Critical Public Conversations and Research sections will remain available until 31 December 2026.
About The Australian Centre
The Australian Centre aims to foster a critical examination of Australian society, culture and history, with an interdisciplinary focus on settler colonialism and its institutions.
Our values:
- A place-based ethic: We value and respect the centrality of Country and First Peoples.
- Reflexivity: We recognise settler positionality as a beneficiary of colonisation.
- Reciprocity: We use our resources to support, remunerate and reciprocate the contributions of Indigenous collaborators wherever possible.
- Justice : We think always about how our work contributes to more just relations between Indigenous and non- Indigenous peoples.
Our people
Explore what we do
The Centre offers a rich program of research and activity that includes research, events and critical conversations, education program and partnerships and projects and work closely with industry, government, NGOs, and community organisations.
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Critical public conversations
The Australian Centre's hugely popular Critical Public Conversations (CPC) series is the Centre's flagship public event offering.
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Graduate research
The Australian Centre supports graduate research work in Indigenous settler relations.
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Treaty education
The Australian Centre's Treaty Education explores how treaties function in relations between Indigenous peoples and contemporary settler societies.
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Research
Our objective is to elevate the expertise and influence of the University of Melbourne researchers through research, research training, specialised graduate education and meaningful critical public discourse.
Past news and events from The Australian Centre
Acknowledgement of Country
The Australian Centre is located at the University of Melbourne, Parkville campus, on unceded Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung land. We acknowledge Country and the people belonging to Country, the Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung Traditional Owners, and we value our continuing relationship with you and your on-going care for Country. We thank the Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung Cultural Heritage Corporation for your generous and ongoing contributions to the Australian Centre.
We also acknowledge that the University of Melbourne has campuses on Country of other First Nation groups, and we acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the Parkville, Southbank, Werribee and Burnley campuses, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung and Bunurong/Boon Wurrung peoples; the Yorta Yorta Nations, whose Country the Shepparton and Dookie campuses are located, and the Dja Dja Wurrung Nations, Melbourne University’s Creswick campus location.
The Australia Centre acknowledges all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and First Nations peoples whose work, lives and Country intersect with ours. We acknowledge that invasion and colonisation has caused harm that is on-going to First Peoples.