The University of Melbourne was already over 110 years old when this history begins. The second oldest university in Australia, it has been graced with a number of histories written by eminent historians. Each of these histories has documented the University’s evolution and diversification from the perspective of their time.

Shifting the Boundaries: The University of Melbourne 1975–2015 continues that story, but the period covered is entirely within living memory. It pauses at ten-year intervals, the first at 1975, to look back at the previous decade. We are invited to enter the University of Melbourne as a living institution, and to watch it as it responds to changing expectations of students, staff and community, to shifting policy frameworks and to an evolving economic and social context.

The principal themes that arc across this story involve massive growth, the evolution towards a research-intensive institution, changing pedagogical imperatives, bureaucratisation and internationalisation in the face of declining public funding.