The Future Index Five
2025
The Future Index Five is our new annual awards, chosen by us, celebrating 5 of the university marketing teams that really stood out in 2025.
The Creatives
We’re excited to announce that ‘The Creatives’ awards deservedly goes to RMIT and RMIT Vietnam for keeping us inspired all year round with their relentless imagination.
In 2025 we saw a partnership with street artist Brolga, transforming Melbourne into a cityscape canvas for giant animated characters. You should search that one out! We celebrated the co-creativity and foresight of RMIT Vietnam’s ‘My Future Uni Vision Board’ campaign - in which high school students went full Canva and CapCut to share their future ambitions collage style. And Vietnam also became home to a fascinating Livebrary alumni impact showcase. That’s definitely worth a browse.
But the biggest stand out for us was RMIT’s ‘What the Future?!’ Campaign - led by one of the most original, on-trend, and student savvy films we’ve seen for a long time. AI anxiety, cost-of-living stress, and a world of uncertainty, are all created into a surprising minute of optimism and cultural relevance. If you want to see how to mix your education and research strengths then this is one for you.
Congratulations RMIT, RMIT Vietnam - keep creating!
RMIT University
The Optimists
Texas A&M fully deserved ‘The Optimists’ Award for their relentless sharing of their ‘Force for Good’ throughout the year. Their SXSW immersive activation, complete with disaster drones and brainwave tech, supported an interactive wall allowing visitors to contribute their own missions to make change happen. And there was lots more, all generating from a new brand platform - from the big YouTube stories to the motorsport sponsorship. We could see why Texas A&M made it into Fast Company’s Brand That Matters 50 for 2025.
But what really convinced us was the commitment to make ‘Force for Good’ a rallying call from the whole community. This is a University that’s proud of its roots and the people it serves, with brand guidelines to speak in a jargon-free voice of Texas. ‘Howdy’ is at the heart of everything. And amongst all of the activity, our number one stand out was the most human story of all. Join over 3 million on YouTube and find the Heart of Howdy story of Sean Artman - the hotel concierge with the undeniable Aggie spirit. And the optimism that speaks for a whole university!
Texas A&M University
The Mavericks
Congratulations Purdue University for winning the ‘Mavericks Award’ for their persistent pursuit of doing things differently! Whether launching their own Brand Studio or fictional spaceship to Mars, there’s a constant flow of originality coming from the team. We’ve not seen universities engage with projects like Reese Witherspoon’s ‘Hello Sunshine’ before - collaborating on initiatives to enthuse young people with STEM; absorbing both the red and green flags of AI with their ‘From AI to IRL’ playbook for teenagers; and encouraging study pauses - and even a bit of yoga - when the pressure gets too much.
Through content and storytelling, the work reflected real student interests - from science to self-expression - and built representation into the brand strategy like a true maverick. With each blockbuster story, and pop-up event all documented in our Future Index Spark Reports of course.
The small steps, giant leaps mindset showed up everywhere, from creative risk-taking to platform choice, to who they chose to speak to. They met future students where they already were and manifested the futures the same students could see themselves in.
Congratulations again Purdue - you’re out of this world.
Purdue University
The Originals
A late surge from Bond University, with one of the most unique university campaign of the year, helped them clinch ‘The Originals’ Award. Well done Bond!
Ditching the lone-achiever storyline that many universities seem to love, Bond celebrates collective ambition. ‘We’re Australia’s most ambitious university. And we love company.’ And Bond is in good company with this approach, reflecting the 2025 shift Adidas has made from the individuality of ‘Impossible is nothing’, to the collective ‘Because we all need someone to make us believe.’ Bond’s campaign is confident, self-aware and really quite refreshing. We love the visuals too - sharp copy, retro colour palette, and warm, yet rather cool. If you know what we mean.
And before all of this, we had already noted Bond’s originality. Who else has run elevated dining experiences - the ultimate in-person storytelling experience - for prospective students? Bond did with their Future Forum events. And we loved the simplicity of a camera and mic on campus and the quick question - ‘what did you learn today?’ All of these examples were captured in our Future Index Spark Reports throughout the year.
Congratulations again Bond. And stay different!
Bond University
This year, one university really stood out for rolling up their sleeves and taking the future into its own hands - the University of Manchester. We are happy to award them ‘The Architects’ Award.
We had already done the Wrapped thing and celebrated Manchester as the most featured university in our 2025 Spark Reports. Reflecting on some of their work we noted how Manchester was often first to the trend party, in the sector at least, with Liam Gallagher / Currys mashup parodies on social; hitting the voice notes to tell stories; and rolling out the open-mic for student content on campus. It helped they have Duncan Iverson, a President who turns up for candid conversations with staff and students, and wasn’t afraid to be mic’d up in Overheard content. Now there’s leadership.
We saw YouTube masterclasses for future students too and ‘Futureproof Your Planet’ made the clever science much more accessible for everyone. But the stand out for us, was the co-created Manchester 2035 Strategy build and launch. With the enabling, fundraising, ‘Challenge Accepted’ campaign close on its heels.Through all of this, the architecture was first-class - telling the story of the strategy’s crowdsourcing and curation, involving staff as storytellers, and then unleashing a whole array of videos - from the energetic, creative headline narrative to the ‘behind-the-scenes student voices.
Built in Manchester. And deserved winners of ‘The Architects’ Award!