Horizons Program

The Horizons program is an intersectional training program designed to expand the conceptual, spatial, and collaborative horizons of graduate researchers' and their future career trajectories.

About the program

Horizons is a doctoral training program, jointly hosted by the Melbourne Centre for Cities and RMIT University's Centre for Urban Research. Over six months selected graduate researchers will developed a suite of skills designed to further their postdoctoral careers, building on intersecting disciplines, campuses, sectors and countries.

Each year a cohort of doctoral researchers from across Melbourne are competitively selected to share their research, knowledge and ideas on working across disciplinary, industry and international intersections.

The Horizons program offers peer-learning opportunities and small group mentoring from high profile academics and urbanists. Participation in the program will involve engagement with internationally focused scholars and organisations, as well as the fostering of critical skills that can inform the development of their own research and equip them in career building. The program has a particular focus on:

• expanding participants' understanding of the modes, possibilities and challenges of engagement across intersecting disciplines, sectors and countries when conducting cities research;
• reviewing the changing landscape of key career development processes for graduate researchers (e.g. overseas fieldwork, conferencing, visiting, joint degrees/supervisions, funding sources, career opportunities beyond academia) and;
• building an inclusive community of practice and exchange that goes beyond one-directional training and expands the support system available for cities researchers to ‘think intersectionally’ across disciplines, sectors and countries.

For 2024, the cohort will be engaging in a series of Masterclasses with esteemed urban scholars and practicioners. Following each session Horizons participants will be developing content collaboratively as part of an emerging urban scholars dialogue piece, to be published in a top-ranking journal following the conclusion of the course. As with previous years, Horizons participants will also be provided wider opportunities to engage with activities across the two Centre's, including as part of the Centre for Cities Annual Symposium.

Horizons Alumni

The Horizons program has been running since 2022! Click here to meet our inaugural cohort of 13 brilliant urban researchers from across the University of Melbourne.

In 2023 we expanded the Horizons program to include doctoral candidates from across metropolitan Melbourne, with our University of Melbourne urban scholars joined by representatives from RMIT University, Victoria University, Monash University, and Zhongnan University of Economics and Law.