The Royal Society of Victoria is our State’s scientific society, founded in 1854. The Society convenes an independent community of science practitioners, educators, industrialists and enthusiasts to promote the understanding and utilisation of scientific knowledge for the benefit of the State of Victoria. Membership is open to any individuals or organisations keen to be involved.
We broker engagement between practitioners of Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics & Medicine (STEMM) and the broader Victorian community, seeking to improve general scientific literacy, evidence-based decision making and the translation of scientific knowledge into purposeful actions in our State.
Headquartered on Wurundjeri land in a heritage-listed building at 8 La Trobe Street, Melbourne, the Society provides a statewide program of outreach, partnerships, lectures, forums, programs and projects. A further overview of who we are and what we do is available at our About Us page.
- Thursday, 10 October, 2024
- Report from the inquiry into the 2022 Victorian Floods. The Legislative Council Environment and Planning Committee’s report makes 73 recommendations to the Victorian Government, including increased collaboration with scientists to understand how modelling can be used to better predict climate change impacts on flooding and improve resilience to extreme weather events.
- Despite strict biosecurity laws and protocols, Varroa destructor breached Australian borders in June of 2022, threatening a $14B industry. By September 2023 the Australian Federal Government announced they were abandoning their eradication strategy, turning instead to management. Now, the parasitic varroa mite has broken through into Victoria’s ecosystems too.
- Australia is home to a rich diversity of birdlife, with over 830 species - nearly one-tenth of the world’s bird species. Our environment ranges from arid deserts to lush, wet tropical rainforests. This diversity of climatic conditions has forced bird species to be innovative and adaptable, evolving in extraordinary ways. In fact, most of the world’s bird species can trace their ancestry back to Australia.
- The hormone oestrogen pollutes our waterways, virtually unchanged even by wastewater treatment, and now marine life is subjected to a drug cocktail that contaminates rivers and streams. Enter our hero, Smart Rust, which can attract many substances, including oil, microplastics, and oestrogen, depending on the coating applied to its superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles.
- “Community” extends beyond human collectives to embrace a vast network of adaptable lifeforms, all of us reliant on each other in our remarkable planet’s dynamic web of life. This National Science Week, the Survive and Thrive program explored how we can use science to help flora, fauna, and ourselves to not only survive, but thrive in our changing world.
- Feral cat populations urgently need to be controlled. The challenge is enormous, and requires ‘boots on the ground’, so we need the media, politicians, government, invasive species organisations, and conservation agencies to encourage and empower people to take individual responsibility in addressing the impacts of outdoor cats.
- Bryophytes are a group of plants that are familiar to most but are rarely called by their species name – even amongst many botanists. They represent some of the smallest plants in the world. Unfortunately, they are among the forgotten species in conservation planning and land management, as their ecosystem requirements and functions are given too little consideration, if any.
- How can Victoria support the development of a market for biodiversity certificates that is based on integrity and trust and, in doing so, deliver nature positive outcomes? Supporting biodiversity scientists to provide independent opinions for biodiversity certificates is one way to help to build a market based on integrity and trust.
- In certain ecosystems, frogs feast on spiders, while in others, spiders devour frogs. It’s unlikely to find the pair co-existing harmoniously without one attacking the other. Yet, located in a burrow somewhere in the Amazon rainforest, scientists have observed an unexpected friendship between the Dotted humming frog (Chiasmocleis ventrimaculata) and the burrowing tarantula (Xenesthis immanis).
