The RMIT Health Network was launched on Tuesday 12 March in Storey Hall, RMIT University!

The event began with opening remarks by Health Network co-convenor Professor Renata Kokanović (Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University) and Professor Ralph Horne (Deputy Pro Vice-Chancellor, Research and Innovation for the College of Design and Social Context, RMIT University).

Following the formal launch of the Health Network by Distinguished Professor and RMIT University Design and Creative Practice Enabling Capability Platform (ECP) director Larissa Hjorth, we had the pleasure of welcoming an amazing panel of four speakers assembled around the theme: Interdisciplinary mental health research: Why and for whom?

Felicity Callard, Visiting Professor to RMIT University and Director of the Birkbeck Institute for Social Research, University of London, presented on interdisciplinary collaborations across the medical humanities and social sciences. Her insightful talk covered the importance and complexities of interdisciplinary collaborations, and the productive research pathways and connections that such work open.

This was followed by Indigo Daya, Human Rights Advisor, Victorian Mental Illness Awareness Council (VMIAC) and Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne, whose presentation outlined the necessity of engaging with people with lived experience of mental health diagnoses in research. Indigo provided some much-needed perspectives on the importance of ethical engagement, co-design and co-production of knowledge on mental health.

Professor Stacy Holman Jones (Monash University) and Associate Professor Anne M. Harris (RMIT University) closed the afternoon with an engaging performative talk on the significance of creative arts-based methods in mental health research. Their presentation offered critical thoughts on how creative arts-based methods of data collection and knowledge translation can benefit people with lived experience of mental health diagnoses, and in turn transform what counts as knowledge on mental health.

The Health Network convenors would like to thank the Social Change ECP for supporting this event and Felicity Callard’s visit, and the Design and Creative Practice ECP for the support in setting up our site.

We are planning a few more events in 2019, stay tuned!

Interested in joining us? Email: network.for.health@rmit.edu.au