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Infrastructure shapes cities and regions, and structures patterns of growth, movement, and social lives. However, the misalignment between strategic plans and delivered projects reveals critical governance gaps, with little clarity surrounding for whom and what ends infrastructures serve. Infrastructure Governance Incubator argues for an integrated public-led and oriented infrastructure governance in Australian cities and beyond. Considering the complex notion of ‘public interest’ in settler-colonial contexts such as Australia, this research foregrounds calls for decolonisation of urban governance laying the foundation down for mutually respectful coexistence of two distinct infrastructure governance systems (i.e., the Western urban planning governance and Indigenous governance). This distinct line of inquiry builds solidarity with Indigenous sovereignties while making transformational contribution to urban studies.

The Infrastructure Governance Incubator is an interdisciplinary multi-university research platform, in partnership with Planning Institute of Australia, and led by a highly esteemed advisory board from industry including key infrastructure stakeholders from NSW and Victoria. It has provided a platform for the First Nations voices to be heard and accounted for in infrastructure governance (via First Nations representation on the Advisory Board, and in interviews, and in dissemination of findings). The Incubator’s work has expanded through co-funded work on public-led smart city approaches with DPIE and through two practitioner-in-residence positions, and a co-funded PhD project.