About Us
The Castlemaine Institute
- Castlemaine Institute is a research and learning hub focused on creating thriving communities, economies and landscapes.
- Our action research is, wherever possible, co-created with the community and foregrounds the diverse expertise in our region.
- We apply multidisciplinary depth to complex problems, drawing on and developing local wisdom through our work.
- For us, how we work is as important as what we work on. We prioritise relationship building and the wellbeing of colleagues, collaborators and the broader community.
The Castlemaine Institute is a charitable research and learning organisation established and operated in Australia.
What we do
Our work is currently centred around five key themes:
- Economy: How do we harness our collective intelligence and work efforts? What is the future of work and industry for our region? Who owns assets in our community and for what purpose?
- Environment: What are our landscapes becoming? What do we want them to become? How do we live within the environment’s capacity and ensure our impacts are nature positive.
- Housing: What is the purpose of housing, and how do we align our financial and policy systems to work towards this purpose?
- Neighbourhoods: How do neighbourhoods support the wellbeing of people and the environment? How do we co-design and co-create climate resilient neighbourhoods, communities and towns?
- Democracy: How do we broaden and increase participation in regional policy and decision making?
History
Conversations around the creation of the Castlemaine Institute gained momentum in 2018, with the organisation forming officially in late 2019. Those involved have been driven to harness the immense talent and opportunity that exists in our region to find a new way of living, drawing on our local culture and history, incredible wealth of expertise, established industries, strong institutions, and with respect to the custodianship of the land by traditional owners the Dja Dja Wurrung. We are all eager to be part of creating the solutions to regional prosperity that shift our town and our region towards climate resilience, nature positive development, equality and democratic engagement.
Upon embarking on this journey and moving to register the organisation, the founders discovered that the name and concept already existed, established in 2016 by renowned local architect Geoff Crosby. This first incarnation of Castlemaine Institute was piloted with a few innovative environmental and planning projects in 2016 before the idea was put on hiatus. We would like to thank Geoff for generously handing over the name Castlemaine Institute so we could continue to work towards a similar vision.
Some of the CI team members celebrating winning the Mount Alexander Shire Council Business award for Community Focused Organisation, 2023.
