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.
- Tuesday, 5 September, 2023
- September is considered the start of spring by most Australians, but Tim Entwisle thinks we have it all wrong. In the south at least, we should be celebrating an ‘early spring’ in August and September—when the wattles are blooming en masse—and a ‘late spring’ in October and November. Yet most don’t acknowledge that things are different in the great southern land.
- Tuesday, 5 September, 2023
- Prescribed burns are said to mimic First Peoples’ cultural burning practices, but Dr Philip Zylstra argues the use of fire in healing and managing Country is far more complex. Australia is wet enough for things to grow, and dry enough for them to burn. Animals and plants have adapted. And over millennia, First Peoples developed cooperative fire regimes.
- Tuesday, 5 September, 2023
- In a rapidly warming world, Victoria's native forests, once threatened by overharvesting, are also threatened by fire and drought. Catriona Nguyen-Robertson revisits the work of Professor Patrick Baker, who recommends more targeted management practices to ensure our forests are resilient to global warming and extreme weather events.
- Tuesday, 5 September, 2023
- Fire patterns are linked to climate conditions, and have been undergoing changes in tandem with anthropogenic climate change. We must understand these changes to more effectively forecast and manage fires for both human safety and the preservation of biodiversity. Kate Bongiovanni explores Dr Luke Kelly's work on "pyrodiversity."
- Tuesday, 5 September, 2023
- One of the challenges of resolving the biodiversity crisis is making it a part of the Victorian community’s consciousness. In a world with so many competing problems, the silent destruction of our unique plants struggles for attention. Gordon Noble offers three simple "nudges" to drive investment in protecting and restoring Victoria’s flora.
- Tuesday, 5 September, 2023
- The species is aptly named, as it is found in a protected pocket close to the Victorian town of Stuart Mill, in the John Colahan Griffin reserve about halfway between Bendigo and the Grampians/Gariwerd. With its conservation status of much concern, the population of these species has dwindled due to significant habitat loss.
- The transformative power of science suggests it should play a fundamental role in developing public policy, ensuring science informs debates about issues such as sustainable energy production, ecosystem protection, and genetic modification of food. However, using scientific knowledge to inform policy debate is not straightforward.
- It can take hundreds of years for plastic to degrade alone, but nature may already have answers to our problem. For some organisms, plastic debris offers a food source; for many others, a literal life raft. When 8 to 10 million metric tons of plastic end up in the ocean each year, some of it provides a home to entire biological communities.
- There are more than 170 trillion plastic particles - with a combined weight of over 2.33 million tonnes - currently floating in the world’s oceans. Today, plastic marine debris is found in all five major ocean gyres, and in the Southern Ocean. Gyres are areas of large circulating ocean currents that act like a vortex, causing floating waste to be gently drawn into their core.
