Professor Rob Raven
Affiliation: Sustainability Transitions Lab, Monash University
Discipline: Human geography
Year elected: 2024
What initially drew you to your field of study?
When I was a teenager in the 1980s, I was attracted to problem solving and finding solutions by tearing apart broken televisions or developing code on our first personal computer for automated solving of word-searching puzzles. While I no longer break televisions or do coding, I still am very much driven to solve problems and find solutions, now through research. Identifying ways to achieve sustainability is arguably thehardest nut to crack.
What are you most proud of?
Originally I trained as an electrical engineer, I switched to become an interdisciplinary social scientist in the area of sustainability transitions. Not having a clear disciplinary home was often a struggle for my intellectual identity, and I refer to myself sometimes as a ‘recovering engineer’. Becoming a Fellow of the Academy was really a proud moment for me as it solidified my identity as a social scientist – despite an interdisciplinary one!
What should your field of study be doing more of right now?
I believe that the social sciences are essential for addressing big societal challenges such as sustainable development. However, the social sciences can do more to be solutions-oriented while still pushing scholarly boundaries within and across disciplines. The field of sustainability transitions is where I feel at home as one of the innovative social sciences communities where interdisciplinarity, rigour and relevance are combined.
What question or issue, in your field, keeps you awake at night?
Having worked my whole career in interdisciplinary departments and university institutes, what keeps me up at night is that we still have not yet resolved how to properly do impact-oriented and interdisciplinary work in universities. Many universities establish interdisciplinary and impact-oriented initiatives with good intensions and hopeful aspirations. What puzzles me is that the evidence is now very clear that these initiatives strengthen rather than oppose conventional, blue-sky research indicators like publications and research income. Yet, these initiatives continue to struggle and are always at existential risk of disestablishment. This is particularly risky for early-career researchers wanting to develop a career in interdisciplinary areas.
Where is your ‘happy’ place?
I love to do long rides on my e-bike while listening to my favourite music. Melbourne has a fantastic bike network that shows you the city from a very different perspective. I also do boxing and meditation, which arguably go very well together!