Enabling Impact Platforms: Building System Integration for Impact

John Howard, 23 September, 2025       

RMIT University has taken an ambitious step in its research and innovation strategy through the Enabling Impact Platforms (EIPs) initiative. It has evolved over almost a decade, beginning in 2016 with what were then known as Enabling Capability Platforms (ECPs). The original ECPs were formed to bring together a critical mass of research capabilities for which RMIT has demonstrated excellence, relevance, and differentiation.

As RMIT’s strategy developed to focus more strongly on research and innovation for impact, the ECPs transitioned into EIPs in 2021. This marked a trajectory that began with building the foundations of interdisciplinary research excellence towards the deployment of these capabilities to achieve impactful outcomes

These eight platforms, covering advanced manufacturing, biomedical innovation, sustainable technologies, urban futures, social change, and other fields, are designed to bring people together across disciplinary, sectoral, and cultural divides. Their purpose is to accelerate the journey from discovery to impact by creating the conditions for collaboration and enabling diverse pathways for research translation and impact.

The EIPs achieve this through their five key strategic roles:

• Catalysing interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral collaborations

• Leading the development of impactful initiatives at scale

• Fostering impact-focused culture and capabilities

• Enabling diverse pathways to research translation

• Providing strategic thought leadership.

The idea resonates strongly with international experience. Innovation systems thrive when they include entities that do more than generate knowledge: they integrate it and enable ways to create value from research. System integrators connect capabilities, orchestrate partnerships, and align efforts with societal needs. By creating the EIPs, RMIT has established an internal mechanism to fulfil this integrator role both within the university and in the wider ecosystem.

The integrator opportunity

System integration has long been recognised as the missing ingredient in complex innovation systems. While excellence in disciplines is essential, impact requires much more: it requires mechanisms that cut across disciplinary and structural silos and enable collective action.

Interdisciplinary approaches also enable more effective problem finding and produce more innovative solutions, which are especially important when addressing the complex problems faced by society today. The EIPs represent exactly this type of mechanism, and over the last decade, have served as an important driver of cultural change within RMIT.

The EIPs are structurally very lean, with researchers and professional staff being affiliated to one or more Platforms, each led by highly accomplished, service-oriented EIP Directors with modest operational staff support.

Their design allows researchers from different faculties to quickly form interdisciplinary teams. They provide small but catalytic funding to seed ideas and test new collaborations. They convene events and networks that involve government, industry, and community partners. In doing so, they create opportunities for academics to see their work adopted and applied in new contexts and to access networks that would otherwise be out of reach.

Enabling diverse pathways to create impact from research is critically important in maximising the potential benefits of translating research. This is because impact comes in many forms and is therefore realisable through different pathways.

While less immediately obvious but equally important, RMIT’s decade long commitment to the EIPs and its activities has also created an environment for continual experimentation and rapid learning to support its enablement model.

Just as importantly, the EIPs position RMIT to contribute to national and international missions. In particular, the EIPs have been instrumental in helping identify ‘white spaces’ for the deployment of research capability, exemplified by the High Impact Potential Initiatives (HIPIs) program, which aims to develop impact-focused, industry-engaged activities at scale.

By aligning the platforms with pressing priorities, including health, sustainability, advanced materials, and digital futures, they give the university a visible role in responding to challenges that are important to society. This is much more than internal collaboration; it is about building the capacity to partner externally on a scale that can make a difference.

Learning from international exemplars

The value of such integrator platforms is confirmed by global experience. The examples below highlight the role of integration and the conditions that allow it to flourish.

MIT’s Deshpande Center – integration through entrepreneurship

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Deshpande Centre for Technological Innovation illustrates the integrator role at the scale of individual projects. The Centre provides small “ignition grants” to faculty, enabling them to test ideas with commercial potential. Crucially, the funding is coupled with mentoring from entrepreneurs and industry experts. This combination has helped many projects transition from laboratory prototypes to venture-backed companies.

The Deshpande story demonstrates the power of seed-to-scale pathways. Small grants alone rarely transform research, but when coupled with mentoring and clear routes to application, adoption, and use, they can unlock extraordinary impact.

For RMIT, the opportunity is to frame EIP seed funding as the first step in a larger journey, potentially leading to ARC and NHMRC grants, Cooperative Research Centres, and commercial ventures. Positioning the platforms as gateways rather than endpoints makes participation more attractive to researchers.

University College London – integration through Grand Challenges

University College London’s (UCL) Grand Challenges initiative is also an instructive model. Launched in 2009, it brings academics together around themes such as global health, sustainable cities, and cultural understanding. The Grand Challenges program has supported hundreds of interdisciplinary projects, many of which have led to policy influence, public engagement, and new external funding.

UCL’s experience highlights the importance of linking integration to institutional performance. Outputs from the Grand Challenges are recognised in the UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF), ensuring that interdisciplinary work contributes to the university’s overall standing. For RMIT, this suggests that embedding EIP outcomes into institutional performance metrics, whether in research assessments, rankings, or industry engagement measures, will be crucial for long-term sustainability.

Fraunhofer Institutes – integration through applied research

Germany's Fraunhofer Institutes are perhaps the most widely cited examples of integration in practice. Established after the Second World War to bridge universities and industry, they now number more than 70 institutes across the country. Each is focused on a domain of applied research, such as laser technology, materials science, or industrial automation. Their collective role is to provide the connective infrastructure for the national innovation system.

The Fraunhofer model shows that integrators succeed when trusted by multiple partners. They are funded partly by government block grants, partly by competitive project income, and largely by contracts with industry.

This blended model means they must always remain relevant to industry needs while still contributing to long-term national capabilities. The lesson for EIPs is that legitimacy as an integrator increases when platforms create value for both academic and external partners. Even small-scale seed projects can build credibility if they demonstrate responsiveness and trust.

Catapult Centres – integration as national infrastructure

In the United Kingdom, the Catapult Centres play a similar integrative role but with a more explicit focus on the national industrial strategy. Launched in 2011, they now cover areas such as high-value manufacturing, digital technologies, offshore renewable energy, and cell and gene therapy. Catapults provide shared facilities, technical expertise, and networks that allow businesses, particularly small and medium enterprises, to access capabilities they could not build on their own.

The catapult experience underscores the importance of long-term institutional support. Each centre receives multi-year core funding from the government, allowing it to plan strategically and provide continuity for its partners. By implication, the impact of its EIPs will be amplified if they can be linked to state or national initiatives in ways that provide continuity beyond annual project and funding cycles. By aligning with emerging missions, such as those supported by Australia’s National Reconstruction Fund, the platforms can position themselves as indispensable connectors.

Other lessons from global practice

Examples from other sources reinforce these points. Arizona State University has embedded integration by restructuring faculty into transdisciplinary schools, ensuring that collaboration is an integral part of the academic fabric. ETH Zurich has created competence centres that pool resources across faculties and external partners, while TU Delft has interfaculty institutes that share doctoral programs and infrastructure. These cases remind us that integrators thrive when they are structurally embedded rather than treated as peripheral add-ons.

Taken together, these international examples suggest that the EIPs are part of a broader global movement.

Continuing Opportunities

For researchers, these platforms open new avenues to apply their expertise, build interdisciplinary teams, and pursue funding opportunities that require cross-cutting collaboration. EIP activities and programs help guide RMIT researchers and their collaborators toward a better understanding of societal needs.

By connecting with industry and government partners, they can see their work adopted in ways that expand its relevance and reach. In doing so, the EIPs help enhance the capabilities of researchers, enabling them not only to conduct excellent research but also to deliver potentially impactful findings that are relevant to society, the economy, and the environment.

For the university, EIPs provide a way to showcase impact that goes beyond publications or grant income. RMIT’s initiative is focused on convening partnerships, generating solutions, and contributing to national and global missions. This can only strengthen the university’s reputation as an institution committed to applied, relevant, and impactful research.

For policymakers, EIPs offer a model of how universities can function as system integrators within regional and national innovation systems. They illustrate the potential for higher education institutions to take a proactive role in connecting fragmented capacities and aligning them with societal priorities. In a policy environment that increasingly emphasises collaboration, translation, impact, and mission orientation, this is an extremely valuable contribution.

Building on momentum

The platforms have already demonstrated momentum. The Strategic Impact Fund has supported dozens of projects that span multiple disciplines, with a particular focus on enabling impact through unconventional pathways. The Platform Activity Fund has seeded workshops and pilots that brought new teams together and built new capabilities for interdisciplinary collaboration.

Enabling Impact Networks formed under the EIPs have engaged hundreds of researchers and professional staff. There are currently over 40 such networks sponsored through the EIPs, all inherently interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary, all self-driven by researchers with minimal enterprise-level control, many involving industry participants from inception and increasingly being established across RMIT’s global footprint, which includes Southeast Asia and Europe.

These early outcomes demonstrate the catalytic potential of even modest investments.

Additionally, the EIPs have evolved an internal ecosystem that fosters leadership development beyond traditional research leadership. The myriad of seed-funded projects and network activities has particularly benefited emerging researchers by providing leadership opportunities that are impact-focused, purpose-led, and values-based. The EIP Directors themselves are exemplary role models of collegiate, cross-disciplinary collaboration.

The next stage is to build upon this foundation. By linking EIP activities more explicitly to external funding pathways, these activities can become launchpads for major initiatives such as the HIPIs. By embedding participation in academic performance systems, it can become integral to careers rather than an optional extra. By cultivating external partnerships, they can strengthen their role as boundary organisations trusted by the government, industry, and community alike.

From potential to practice

RMIT’s Enabling Impact Platforms represent a positive step in the evolution of Australian university research and innovation. They demonstrate that it is possible to design mechanisms that act as system integrators, connecting disciplines, convening partnerships, and aligning knowledge with societal needs.

The opportunities are considerable. For individual researchers, these provide pathways for collaboration and visibility. For RMIT as an institution, it signals a commitment to impact and relevance. For the national innovation system, they demonstrate that universities can do more than generate knowledge; they can integrate it to maximise value from knowledge creation and exchange.

The lesson from international experience is that integration works best when it is embedded, supported, and sustained.

With its very lean structure and relatively modest resources, it is also an exemplar of organisational commitment to long term strategy and direction, with courageous leadership to learn as it evolves and to make course corrections and strategic realignment as required.

RMIT’s EIPs are still young, but they have the potential to evolve into platforms of enduring significance. By embracing the integrator role, they can help transform fragmented research capacity into a coordinated impact. In doing so, they not only advance RMIT’s mission but also contribute to shaping innovation ecosystems in Australia and beyond.

The assistance of Professor Swee Mak, Associate Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research and Innovation Capability at RMIT, in preparing this Insight is greatly appreciated.