Paris Nanterre University Detail

Calls for the establishment of a national university in Australia began as early as 1900.^[20] After the location of the nation’s capital, Canberra, was determined in 1908, land was set aside for the ANU at the foot of Black Mountain in the city designs by Walter Burley Griffin.^[20] Establishment of the university was disrupted by World War II but resumed with the creation of the Department of Post-War Reconstruction in 1942, ultimately leading to the passage of the Australian National University Act 1946 by the Chifley government on 1 August 1946.^[20]

A group of eminent Australian scholars returned from overseas to join the university, including Sir Howard Florey (co-developer of medicinal penicillin), Sir Mark Oliphant (a nuclear physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project), and Sir Keith Hancock (the Chichele Professor of Economic History at Oxford). The group also included a New Zealander, Sir Raymond Firth (a professor of anthropology at LSE), who had earlier worked in Australia for some years.^[20] Economist Sir Douglas Copland was appointed as ANU’s first Vice-Chancellor and former Prime Minister Stanley Bruce served as the first Chancellor.^[21] ANU was originally organised into four centres—the Research Schools of Physical Sciences, Social Sciences and Pacific Studies and the John Curtin School of Medical Research.^[20]